II

RÔLE OF THE FATHER AND OF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY—DISLIKE OF CHILDREN—LETTER OF A HOMOSEXUAL WHO FEARS THE “PENETRATING EYE” OF WOMEN—A MARRIAGE WITH THE FATHER—JEALOUSY OF THE FATHER—A HOMOSEXUAL WHO HATES HIS MOTHER—A BELOVED BOY AS THE IMAGO OF THE SISTER—PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE WITHIN THE FAMILY CIRCLE—FEAR OF THE CHILD—A GIRL WHO HATES ALL CHILDREN—DIFFERENTIATION FROM THE MOTHER.

Wenn wir nun alles dieses uns vergegenwärtigen und wohl erwägen so sehen wir die Päderastie zu allen Zeiten und in allen Ländern auf eine weise auftreten, die gar weit entfernt ist von der, welche wir zuerst, als wir sie bloss an sich selbst betrachteten, also a priori, vorausgesetzt hatten. Nämlich die gänzliche Allgemeinheit und beharrliche Unausrottbarkeit der Sache beweist, dass sie irgendwie aus der menschlichen Natur selbst herausgeht; da sie nur aus diesem Grunde jederzeit and überall unausbleiblich auftreten kann als Beleg zu dem naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurrent.

—Schopenhauer.

Considering all that and taking everything carefully into account we find that pederasty has been manifest at all times and in all countries in a manner very unlike what we had at first presumed a priori, that is, by considering abstractly the subject. Precisely its complete universality and irradicable character everywhere shows that the thing somehow flows out of human nature itself; only in that way could it persist at all times and everywhere as an accompaniment to naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurrent.

—Schopenhauer.

I begin this chapter with the history of a case, a subject with whom I have never spoken. I know him only through correspondence. Nevertheless the case seems to me of great significance as it substantiates many of my previous conclusions. The need of psychologic insight as shown by our necessarily brief histories of homosexuals becomes more fully obvious as we become acquainted with a complete analysis of a homosexual.

62. Mr. G. L. writes me:

“I shall attempt to conform with your request and give you a cursive and true insight into my sexual and mental life. Born and raised the youngest of ten children, three of whom died early of children’s diseases, I lived in the country till my 5th year, when I started going to school and I remember nothing of that period except that I was tremendously fond ofplaying with fireand that I kept up till then, more or less, the habit of bed-wetting, an act which was associated with the pleasurable feeling that I was sitting on the chamber. I know also that I envied my sisters a great deal. My unusually strict and religious parents naturally subjected me to rigorous training and thus I learned early to distinguish between mine and thine, good and evil, truth and falsehood. Continually watched over by parents and instructors—a custom contrary to the modern spirit—I was kept from many of the children’s games.

“When I did play, it was mostly with boys and I do not recall having preferred the company of girls. My free time was taken up a great deal with agricultural pursuits and I was about 8 years of age when the first sexual episode took place which left an impression on my mind,having witnessed that year how some boys of my own age played with the sexual parts of a dog and, another time, how the same boys played with their own sexual parts, taking one another’s member in the mouth,—but withoutfeeling on my part any desire to imitate them. With girls I came but little into contact as a child, but I remember once having been present when several boys, 11–12 years of age, abused a girlbut I took no part in the deed. At about that period I put on women’s clothes a few times though today a man in women’s clothes rather disgusts me. Two incidents concerning me personally are still vivid in my memory, namely, playing once with my privates, in the presence of other boys, and another time, warmly embracing the naked body of another boy while playing a ‘mother and father’ game. Thirteen years thus passed with nothing eventful taking place, except a fall from a tree as the result of which I hurt myself rather seriously. It was at that period that my teacher, who considered me not only a bright boy but a model student as well, prevailed upon my struggling parents to permit me to continue my schooling. I was able to secure, in fact, a free scholarship at an Institute. Shortly after that a schoolmate grew attached to me and hetaught me to masturbate. Although I had already erections, there was no seminal loss, probably on account of deficient development. He and another schoolmate prevailed on me to masturbate then—but nothing more. About that time other comrades were in the habit of speaking of some girl or other, admiring her beauty.This talk about a ‘pretty girl’ struck me as strange, so far as I remember.It was during my second high school year (gymnasial-klasse),—I may have been just over my 14th year, at the time,—when a teacher appeared in class with the trousers absent-mindedly unbuttoned and when I noticed it my eyes became glued on his trouser fly as though in a trance, and thus I awoke, for the first time, to the sad realization of my sexual bend. From that time on I noticed that I was extraordinarily attracted to this teacher although he did not like me in school. It was then that my first struggles, the first wishes in my awakened boyish soul, began to shape themselves. There were two boys in particular who, among others, charmed me with their attractiveness. I masturbated a great deal during that period, without indulging in any particular phantasies,—occasionally in the company of other boys. But I had the feeling of being sexually attracted to boys and in my dreams appeared the wish to be their friend. But the stimuli were not of a character which I found impossible to curb. Next I felt myself irresistibly attracted to an elderly man. Neither in the waking state nor in my dreams did I think at all of women during that time. Around my 18th year I experienced the first stormy upheaval which nearly unbalanced me. I came into close touch with a distant relative, an attractive, interesting and splendid intellectual man who, moreover, was happily married. I then passed through the anguish of unrequited love, kept dreaming ofwhat was beyond my reach, and endeavored to still my unnatural passion through excessive onanism. The keen struggle to preserve my secret, the intense mental torture, caused me one day to break down. The strict but kind-hearted talk of my relative in whom, of necessity, I forced myself to confide, saved me that time from suicide. The next day the house physician was called, a cordial and kindly young man, who took a strong professional interest in me. Day after day he spoke to me and tried to influence my mind and he succeeded in shifting my sexual feelings entirely into the background and in about five months he thought I was ready to try regular intercourse. But the attempt proved a new defeat for me.The secret aversion, the fear of infection, made me prove myself impotent at the critical moment. But I did not tell the physicianand shortly thereafter he dismissed me as cured. There followed again years of struggle. Fearing mental breakdown I was driven to the idea of seeking final release through suicide. But I lacked courage for the deed.... Was it cowardice, was it the yearning of my sickly body that prevented me from ending then a life unblessed by a single experience of that highest yearning of a healthy body,—the consummation of love? During that time my relative also died and my anguish was unbearable. For I was absorbed in that great passion of mine so deeply that I had forgotten all about the rest of the world.I was hardly reconciled to that misfortune when further anguish came into my life; several men crossed my path with whom I would have no doubt entered into intimacy if I had found any points of contact. In my despairing mood I confided inHofrat W., who consoled me saying that my misfortune could not be very deep rooted since I had come to him about it. He advised me to seek intimacy with girls (I came a great deal in contact with girls in the course of my daily work and also forced myself to learn dancing). In accordance with his advice I resorted topuellæ publicæand had intercourse a number of times but without particular pleasure or satisfaction. Yes, I went so far as to propose marriage to a girl of a good family. It was my fate not to meet with a favorable response, although secretly I was gratified at that. For I could not think that my supreme passion intimately and indissolubly linked to the nature, the appearance and form of boyhood and charming old age would ever be overcome. Springtide and autumn, boyhood and old age, evoke in me the wonders of development and suggest the soft quiet stealing in of blissful eternal peace. Although the sense of touch alone is enough to rouse in me the most wonderful feeling of bliss, contact with a woman leaves me indifferent, if it does not actually inspire me with disgust. Thus I kept up for a time longer, greatly agitated but unyielding, the fear of beingdiscovered keeping me back. Tortured at night by the yearnings of the day while dreaming of endless bliss by conjuring up the most intimate scenes depicting contact, dreaming and thinking also of oral (lip) contact, but never of any love acta posteriori. In terror of being found out—I blushed at the lightest pointed joke when in company—I often thought of joining the foreign legion or to migrate to some country where homosexual love is not looked upon as a crime or as something shameful.

“Often I heard of places where persons of my bent may be found but I never had the courage to look them up, fearing that I would be recognized, that I would be put to shame and that I should lose my means of subsistence. I am particularly pained at the thought that I must pass for an inferior dissolute type while millions and millions of insignificant tramps are placed on a higher level in the eyes of the law, enjoy life and are even honored and respected while I, in spite of possessing the qualities of a truer manhood, must waste my life in joyless existence. Two women came into my life with whom I became somewhat intimate,one attracting me temporarily because her physical appearance was like that of a boy underdeveloped, the other, because I was at the time under the influence of alcohol. But I noticed in connection with those two experiences that I felt no particular satisfaction during bodily contact with the women or while kissingthem,in fact, many women cause me nausea if I so much as take food out of their hand. Severalpuellæ publicæhave tried to rouse my sexual feelings (lambentes glandem membri), but in spite of erection I felt no particular pleasure, and the act was always followed by a feeling of despair—the same old story. Sometimes in my anguish I sought the church and there I broke into tears and I yearningly clasped my hands in prayer without being a believer at heart. Ofttimes I thought my mind must be affected and thought I had to go to an asylum for the insane but it would make my trouble known to do so and I feared I should have to forego contact with men forever after that. OccasionallyI dreamed also of women, but without any particular feelings, while if I dreamed of clasping in a warm embrace or only touching or even merely looking at a boy, or at an elderly man, I felt great pleasure. I dreamed of contact with the lips. Something more about the family: On account of father’s strict disciplineI inclined more to mother who was more indulgent. One of four sisters is married, also both brothers, happy and satisfied, I believe. (I am very bashful with all my relations, old and young.) One uncle only showed eccentricities and he remained single. All my other habits of life are not unlike those of any normal young man, I have friends who are married and who are unaware of my condition. But time after time I am tremendously agitated onaccount of my mental struggle. Finally, to conclude: my dear doctor, you cannot prevail upon me again to try to look you up at your office because the penetrating look of your office girl inspires me with the fear that my condition is recognized and diagnosed at a glance. If you feel inclined to advise me how best to withstand this craving or to mention some country where I may go, I should be very grateful to you—if not, I have learned to bear defeat.”...

One of the usual confessions, overlooking most important features. The self-incriminating feeling of the masochist who has “learned to bear defeat,” is indicated by the ridiculous fear of the “penetrating look” of my office girl. This fear would probably be traced through analysis to his sadistic attitude towards women. There are a number of other interesting statements. He belongs to a family of many children, a severe father, a negligent mother, he is jealously envious of his sisters. A large number of homosexual episodes are related about his childhood and his habit of putting on women’s clothes. That shows clearly the tendency to identify himself with the mother or sister. But why did he want to be a woman? Why did he want to assume the rôle of mother? He wanted to supply a woman, to substitute the mother to his father. Here it wasthe strong fatherwho so attracted theboy that the latter wanted to be everything to him; Subsequently he falls in love repeatedly with elderly men who stand for substitutes of his father. The elderly man is always theImagoof the father. During the homosexual episodes with elderly men, either actual or occurring merely in the boy’s fancy, he finds himself still a child towards whom the father displays tenderness and who is permitted by the father to carry onfellatioupon the latter. He is also drawn to young boys. There he plays the rôle of the father while the boy supplies the picture of his own youth.

Interesting is his distinct disgust at women which disappears after alcoholic drinks enough so as to enable him to carry out coitus. He was also near falling in love with a girl who had a boyish appearance. That betrays certain relations between boy and girl. The boys are loved when they show the traits of a beloved sister, the old men when they recall the father.

His path towards woman is blocked. Disgust and fear of infections cover more significant motives bearing a religious coloring. Every prostitute becomes the sister, a younger edition of the mother. Without analysis the genesis of this paraphilia cannot be understood. He avoids me because he is unwilling to discover the truth. The over-severe father seems to have roused in him the yearning for a kindlier one and to have determined the developmentof his feeling-attitude. An attachment to the sister seems also clearly discernible.

63. Mr. T. D., 26 years of age, has struggled vainly for years against his homosexual disposition. He is attracted to old, gray-bearded men, who always represent to his mind an erotic ideal, and loves to be in their company, go on walks with them, play cards or perform music, and loves also the company of very simple fellows, preferably sailormen, plasterers, and soldiers, and among the latter prefers artillerists. His sexual activity consists in holding the friend’smembrum virilein his hand and giving his own to be held by the other likewise. Orgasm follows rapidly at that. After the deed, regrets and strong avowals never to repeat it. The last time he tried it a watchman caught him in the act and brought him together with his companion, a workingman, to court.

Analysis discloses the following facts: He has repeatedly tried to have intercourse with women but each time great fear and disgust prevented. Strong erections, but beforeimmissio penis, themembrumturns soft and useless. Accomplishment of the orgasm through manual friction of the organ by the woman’s hand is possible, but is followed by a powerful feeling-attitude of disgust and he must leave immediately. He has had various opportunities to become intimate with certain women and girls, theyhave even incited him to it, but he does not feel tempted.

His family history is as follows: He is the only son of a very kindly man who died four years previously. The mother died at his birth and that has established in his mind an intimate association between coitus and death. He cannot help thinking of that association when with women. His father was extraordinarily tender with him, and for his sake never married again. When he was still young his father always played with him, devoting to him all his spare time. Later their relationship became even more intimate. There was a sort of marriage situation with his father.

He began to masturbate at a very early age and claims to have indulged in phantasies only about common men, imagining they were handling hismembrum virile.

His attachment to his father was decidedly morbid. If the father stayed away from the house a quarter of an hour longer than usual, he began to cry and could not be consoled. The whole object of his life was to bring joy to his father and to replace in the latter’s life the lost mother. When the father fell ill he took it so much to heart that it was feared his mind would break down. After the death of his father he attempted suicide and was thwarted in the act by his father’s faithful servant. He made all sorts of resolutions, among others, not to masturbateduring the year of mourning. He did not live up to that.... At first he is unable to recall heterosexual episodes from his childhood and his memory fails him equally regarding homosexual facts. But suddenly the cloud which seemed to cover his childhood lifts and a vast number of reminiscences come to surface, showing the developmental course of his homosexual tendency. His father had always been a strong admirer of the other sex and even as a child he had observed that the father was maintaining intimate relations with the nurse, the cook, as well as with the maid servant. Once he surprised his father in the act of embracing the cook while the two were alone in the room. The irate father boxed his ear because he entered without knocking at the door. That was one of the rare occasions on which his father punished him. He also overheard at night how his father crawled into the nurse’s bed, who was still very young and pretty at the time and carried on all sorts of doings with her. Later he received private instruction from a male tutor who conformed to thegenius lociand was also intimate with the servant girl. As a child he often wished he were a woman so as to take the cook’s place in gratifying his father. The father seemed to fear that the boy might fall into the women’s hands and did not delay warning his son with appropriate teachings. At 12 years of age his father instructed him frankly about the dangers ofmasturbation, with the result that he struggled hard against the habit without, however, overcoming it. A few years later his father spoke to him about the terrible dangers of venereal diseases, warning him against prostitutes. He was told he must watch out, for he would have frequently occasion to go through the city, and the prostitutes are always eager to seduce such innocent young boys so that many a one is ruined for life.

It is significant also that at 5 years of age he played with a girl from the neighborhood, trying to imitate the father. He must have hurt the girl for she cried out, the nurse rushed in, a serious scene ensued, and he was severely chastised by the nurse.

An ugly impression was produced on him when he witnessed a terrible quarrel between their cook and the nurse who were jealous of each other on account of the father’s attentions. They grabbed each other by the hair and the whole household was in an uproar. The cook had to leave the house at once. He believes that after that incident his father gave up all intimate relations with the women in the house. At 19 years of age he fell in love with the cashier of a coffee house and would have very much liked to possess her. But his father, to whom he told everything, warned him against all cashier women because they are usually diseased and infected. As a warning he told him that in his youth he once suffered very unpleasant consequences as theresult of an affair with that kind of a woman and was even subjected to blackmail.

He filled his heart with a gruesome fear of woman. In addition to that he placed in his hands a book relating all about the evil consequences of sexual diseases, so that after that he did not dare come near a woman without the protection of a condom. After intercourse, which consisted merely of digital manipulations in his case, he had to bathe at once and to wash his genitals with soap several times. After homosexual acts he did not feel the compulsion to carry out these ablutions.

We now come to the analysis of his acts, which show themselves veritable compulsive manifestations. Suddenly he becomes restless, energetically tries to control himself, then paces back and forth for hours, until he falls into the hands of one of the male prostitutes who easily recognize their prospective victims. But as he never mentioned any name and never established any lasting intimate relations, he escaped blackmail. Once he thought that a certain masseur had studied his physiognomy and had later recognized him. He saw that fellow a few times in front of his home. Immediately he left Vienna and undertook an extensive journey which kept him for some months in foreign countries.

In the act he tried to find the love caresses of his father. He split love into its well recognized two components. The erotic side he reserved for elderlymen, physicians, and the faithful elderly friends,—while for sexuality proper he turned exclusively towards men of low rank. Similarly he divided his father’s personality into two parts, the high-striving, intellectual, lofty-minded father, and the woman fancier, the lover of ordinary servant girls. He was still playing the rôle of a male but during the act he regressed back to childhood, becoming again a child who longs for the father’s tender love squandered on servant girls. Moreover the ordinary males also had the traits of servants, they were of the servant class.

We have here an instance of the transposition of the love of servant girls to males. He had always a weakness for servant girls and since he feared he might yet get tangled up in marriage with a cook, he tried to keep away from them. Only once in the home of a friend he embraced suddenly a cook and passionately kissed her. “I could have without a doubt cohabited with her,” he told me. But he soon quit visiting that particular friend....

He identified himself completely with the father. He lived in his own house, acted like the father, had the same kind of wardrobe, although his father had aged a great deal. But in one respect he wanted to be different. He engaged therefore a male servant and always took his meals outside, so as to have no cook in the house. But that servant he kept always at a certain distance. He did not care tohave any love affairs with servants in the house, like his father.

The analysis disclosed his repressed sadistic attitude towards woman. His first attempts at intercourse with women failed him and he was able to carry out coitus successfully only under the influence of alcohol. Later he did recall a single successful coitus without that aid. The girl had roused his anger with the remark that he was merely an insolent fellow. He jumped at her, ready to strike her, and was tremendously excited. In that roused state he carried out coitus.But he would have rather strangled her.

He showed an idiosyncrasy against certain female occupations. Nurses in their garb he would have gladly torn to pieces. He also hated all nuns. It was not well for any woman to rouse his anger. He could be very dangerous when roused. He confesses entertaining as his favorite phantasy the thought of tearing to pieces a woman.

The reason for this sadistic attitude: Hisinfantile jealousyof all women since woman had robbed him of his father’s love. Among them was also a nurse who had taken care of the father during a prolonged illness.

That hatred of women made him impotent and drove him into the homosexual path. For he was afraid of himself when finding himself alone in the presence of a woman. He rushed away from housesof prostitution suddenly, as if a thousand demons were after him.

I succeeded in convincing him that this sadistic attitude was a rudiment of his early feelings, that he was really fighting against ghosts which he had long since dispelled. Now it was up to him to avow consciously his criminal tendencies and to render them innocuous through meeting them in the open. Presently he began having intercourse withpuellæ publicæ, before the analysis was ended, and even undertook to carry out coituslege artis. He forced himself to do it because he no longer cared to incur the risk of coming into conflict with the law. (The legal case against him was squashed because there had been committed no overt act and such manipulations ordinarily are unpunished in Austria, if they cause no open scandal.) Later he chose a sweetheart who accompanied him on his travels and whom he suddenly abandoned. He had meanwhile met a woman who captivated him mentally and spiritually. Two years later I received their engagement card. In this case the analysis accomplished a complete recovery.

Here we found a complete fixation on the father, which had to be overcome first in order to free the path to woman which had become obstructed by all sorts of infantile imperatives. Neither the mother nor the persons who trained him during his earlieryears play any rôle in the psychogenesis of his homosexuality; on the other hand there was his strong sadistic attitude towards women which showed itself in a personally baffling fear of women.

This case shows how one-sidedSadger’sexplanation is of homosexuality, when he traces its psychogenesis solely to the relations with the mother and overlooks entirely the rôle of the father.

We must also bear in mind that many children gravitate to the mother only because they feel themselves neglected by the father, because they hate the father, and are unable to attain a proper feeling-attitude towards him. Precisely that overstressed love of the mother and the obvious antagonism against the father adroitly covers the fixation on the father.

I will now report three similar cases from my own practice, relating only the important details:

64. Mr. S. L. has not worked as bank employee for the past three years or more. Three years ago he began to complain of various nervous ailments and was granted a leave of absence to recover his health. That leave proved his undoing. He did not improve; instead, he became totally unable to work and is now no longer able to return to his duties. His father always maintained that the whole trouble was imaginary, and wanted to hear nothing of a prolongation of the leave. But the man’s sufferingbecame gradually worse. Out of spite for his father’s attitude he at first simulated the aggravation of his trouble and his condition in the end actually grew so much worse that it shattered him to pieces and he lost control over himself. He experienced attacks of dyspnea so severe that he could not talk. The dyspnea occurred in paroxysms. After one year he lost his position with the bank and, reduced to want, he appealed to his well-to-do father for aid. The father denied him any assistance because he did not consider the son unable to work; he thought the son was simulating so as to impose on him. S. L. sued his father for sustenance and won, aided by the testimony of a number of physicians who certified that his case was one of severe neurasthenia, so that his father had to give him a monthly allowance. Father and son broke all personal relations so that the payment was made through an attorney. Thereafter S. L. was inspired by no other thought than revenge on his father. He was very clever in thinking out new legal issues and additional suits against him. Finally he came to the conclusion he was not the rightful son of his father and threatened a law suit which only his love for his mother prevented him from actually starting. She was revolted at the son’s terrible accusation but so strongly under his influence that she did not have the will power to break with him. She met him clandestinely, placing moneyinto his hands. He loved his mother above all else and urged her to leave the father. He put detectives on his father’s trail, hoping to be able to fasten against him the accusation of being untrue to the mother. He always spoke of his father as “the old rascal,” “the old scamp,” “that miserable, quarrelsome rake.” “Should I see him today writhe in agony it would be the best and most pleasant day I ever had.” I had never seen before so bitter a hatred of the father.

He was a confirmed homosexual, hating all women with the exception of his mother, whom he held in divine veneration. The alleged breach of faithfulness which he alleged her to have committed with a person of high position (the well-known family romance of the neurotic) he excused as natural for it would have been a miracle for that noble soul to have remained true to so terrible a man. The father compelled her to coitus with brute force. He was the offspring of such a coercion, etc.... He loved only younger men, even boys, and he was fairly brutal towards them. Occasionally he carried on deeds with older men towards whom he then preserved an attitude of submissiveness and passivity, trying to please them in every way. He permitted pederasty on his person and did not shrink fromfellatio.

The analysis showed a passionate love of the father, a feeling which on account of its unattainableaspect turned into bitter hatred. He thought the father was partial to the other sons and fled to the mother to whom he often complained about the father’s severity and lack of affection. In his homosexual acts he played actively the rôle of the father, becoming at such times very severe and almost cruel, passively he carried out the act as if he were with the father, being then very submissive, and thus allowing his whole repressed love to outflow as if bent on showing him:that is how loving I would be with you always if you only were agreeable!Cruel phantasies revolving around revenge upon the father as the central theme were confessed under strong resistances. Several times he came near shooting his father. He often fancied himself in situations in which his father depended altogether on his compassion and magnanimity. For instance, he would imagine his father had committed some great fraud. He himself had become a millionaire through an ingenious invention of his own. His father comes begging at his feet and is refused any aid. His favorite reading is books describing cruel punishments, the inquisition tortures, etc. The well-known work ofOctave Mirbeau, “Le jardin des supplices,” threw him into ecstasy.

The other roots of this subject’s homosexuality I do not dwell upon because I am concerned here only with the rôle of the father....

The next case shows a very similar situation:

65. Mr. G. Z. for some years has had intimate relations with an elderly man, an artist, whose studio is the meeting place of a number of young men exclusively. He is not a musician like the others, but a jurist, and had met incidentally Mr. X, his fatherly friend, as he calls the man. Before that time he had been entirely abstinent. He became Mr. X’s friend only at the age of 21. The friendship was wholly platonic until they undertook a journey together. At Salzburg they occupied together the same room, because the hotel was filled. They carried on intercourse (coitus inter femora), he playing the female rôle on that occasion as well as subsequently. G. Z.’s relations with his father are very stressed. They hardly speak to each other. He is employed in his father’s office, but has only business relations with him. His whole spare time he devotes to his mother. One day he surprised his mother with the information that he had had his father watched and found out that the father maintained clandestine relations with a number of women. He requested his mother to break with the father. He raised a terrible row with his father, ordering the father to withdraw from the office and leave the business entirely to him, and at that the father showed him the door. A letter from the mother convinces him that he is not the son of his father;thereupon he locks himself in the room and commits suicide by shooting himself.

Jealousy of the father had driven him to suicide. During the acts with the fatherly friend he played the rôle of the son replacing the women in the life of the father.

66. Mr. T. B., 32 years of age, like Case 64, is also unable to work. He has tried everything but cannot make anything go. His father is a common employee reduced to seek occasionally the son’s financial aid. But the young man now stays at home and complains of attacks which he describes as of an epileptic nature, occurring only at night, but which prove to be hysterical anxiety attacks. His brother is diligent and hard-working, the favorite of the family. When the brother is praised he turns so wild that he is boiling with rage. He speaks but little with the brother, exchanging with him only necessary words. Regarding his father he declares that living together with him he finds most painful. He has delicate tastes. But his father’s manner of eating and talking rouses his anger. He will bless the day when he shall once more be working and in a position to leave the parental home. The mother was on his side, believed in his illness and in the genuineness of his attacks, and comes at night during his attacks to his bed, trying to help him and to quiet him to the best of her powers. Themother alone knows that he is homosexual and she does not disturb him in the least on that score. But she turns jealous as soon as she sees him pay any attention to a girl, and every night, too, she comes to the kitchen to make sure that her sons are not taking advantage of the servant girls. She accompanies the ailing son on his errands and is his confidante. She does not get along at all well with her husband and they have ceased marital relations long ago. There are thus two parties in the house, he with his mother, and the father with the other son.

Moreover, the ailing son raises various issues so that there are daily quarrels and conflicts in the house. The father published a statement in the newspaper to the effect that he will no longer be responsible for debts and obligations contracted by the son. Thereupon the mother, who earns an independent income with her piano lessons, left the house together with her favorite son. They rented another home for themselves and the mother hopes that the separation and the quiet care will bring about her son’s complete recovery. At this stage T. B. is brought to me for analysis. Two days later I am called to the father. T. B. had gone there under an excuse and while searching among the books he was seized with a very severe attack and had to be put to bed. He was now so ill that he could not leave the bed. It was the love of the father that had driven him to the place. He could not live withoutseeing his father and could not endure the thought of leaving the father alone with the brother. The mother moved back to the old home. As prerequisites for my analysis I suggested isolation of the subject and moderate occupation, and the mother apparently agreed. Next day the patient wrote me that on account of his attacks he would be unable to live among strangers, and that therefore he must give up the treatment. An experience similar to that I had with the epileptic, Case No. 51.

The specific phantasy during his indulgences in which he played always a passive rôle, represented him as the mother who gives herself up to the father. The following dream yielded some light on the matter:

“I lie on the bed in a remarkable attire, a hood on my head and dressed in a green robe. I gaze in a looking-glass and instead of my person I see my mother, and father in the act of bending over her to give her a kiss. Now the image in the looking-glass fuses with the original, the two coming together and forming a single picture. I feel myself turning into a woman and everything male about me falls off or disappears. I have long black hair, a white skin and a high voice. My arms stretch out to embrace a man and I awake with a feeling of anxiety and a rapid heart beat.”

An analysis of this dream is superfluous. The subject was unwilling to see its meaning.

But the fixation upon the mother is often also marked with hatred. It must not be thought that the homosexual is always disposed pleasantly towards the mother. It also happens that the love for the mother is covered under an overt hatred and an unnatural disgust, as is shown by the following case:

67. H. U., 24-year-old sculptor, homosexual as long as he can remember. His inclination is always towards waiters and restaurant employees. Has four sisters and an older brother who had to go to America and is lost to them. His father is a writer, a genial but impractical man who stuck to journalism. He clings to his father with every fiber of his heart, protecting him against the attacks of the mother who is tired of her husband’s continual love affairs and cannot stand them any longer. The father lives in a dreamy state continuously, passing from one ecstasy, lasting from several days to a week, into another. He is not finicky in his love adventures, drawing the line neither at servant girls nor at prostitutes; daily he has some new rendezvous and in that way squanders a great portion of his income. There are always quarrels in the house, and the father does not like to stay at home, preferring to spend his evenings in the public houses.The relations between mother and son are as unpleasant as between the parents. The son always lets his mother know that she is repulsive to him. If she attempts to come near him in the room he avoids her, shouting: “Don’t touch me, mir graust vor dir,—you give me the shivers!” He never permits her to fondle him, and has no good word for the poor tortured woman. Towards his sister he is also always sarcastic, aloof, and likes to meet her admirers to make uncomplimentary remarks about her to them. The situation became seriously aggravated, he had to leave the house, and now wants to meet no one of the family except the father, whom he sees daily at the newspaper office. He hates fanatically all women and dotes onStrindbergandWeininger.

Back of this hatred of women stands his great love for the mother, the sisters, and all women. In that respect he is exactly like his father, whose fate he does not want to share. He protects himself against the love for his mother because he would be lost and subordinate to women if he yielded. The gruesome quarrels which he witnessed during his childhood showed him a father who ruined himself on account of women, a man unable to achieve the full expression of his high ideal because he squandered his energies on numerous love adventures. Homosexuality serves him as a protection against all womanhood. His attachment to waiters is explainedthrough the fact that his mother had been a waitress whom his father had married after she had become pregnant by him so as to legitimatize the child. After two weeks he breaks up the analysis because he feels that his attitude towards women is being changed. In that attitude lies his security. Among waiters he prefers small young boys who remind him of his sister.

This fixation upon the sister is not so rare, as is shown by the next case, which dates back to my earlier psychoanalytic experience.

68. Mr. P. G., teacher in a high school (Realschule professor), consults me on account of an ailment which began a few weeks ago and which threatens to destroy all his joy of living. He is 26 years of age and has had no sexual intercourse. In fact, he has not had even one genuine love affair. A few months ago he met a girl whom he liked very much and they became engaged. They were to be married in six months. She is a friend of his sister’s, a girl to whom he had not previously paid any particular attention but during an outing he got to know her and to appreciate her so well that he fell suddenly in love with her. It was not a great consuming passion,—rather a mutual understanding and a strong spiritual kinship. He was abstinent through conviction. He wanted to enter the marriagebond a pure man and was proud that in that respect he was unlike his friends and colleagues. Then something happened in his life which threatened to break him to pieces and even drove him to thoughts of suicide. I relate the occurrence in his own words:

“In my class there is a very beautiful, physically imposing, slim, bright young fellow whom I liked on account of his excellent answers and fine manners. I directed my questions at him with great pleasure, whenever the other boys could not answer, knowing that I would always receive from him the correct answer, and I have often held this favorite scholar of mine up to the others as an example of how they ought to be. One night I dreamed that the boy was lying in my bed and that I embraced and kissed him. I woke up, scared, and presently quieted down. ‘Nonsense,’ I said to myself. ‘Anything may come up in a dream!’ At school that day I found myself somewhat uneasy towards that boy because I could not help thinking about my dream. I avoided putting any questions to him. As was frequently his habit, the boy waited for me after school hours and asked permission to accompany me on the way. We had to go the same road and I was pleased to pass the time talking with him. He entertained me. I heard a great deal about what the pupils were saying about the teachers and it seemed to me very interesting. Teaching means building up souls, andso I wanted to implant every noble and high ideal in the soul of this child.

“I granted him also that day, gladly, permission to come along. I was strikingly distracted and silent. Whereas formerly I had been in the habit of taking him by the arm now and then, this time I avoided all intimate contact, because the dream stood between me and the handsome young boy, rendering any intimacy or informality impossible. I reached home and very promptly went to my bride. She found me absent-minded, wanted to know the reason,—and about that, naturally, I could but be silent. I wanted to show her tenderness; she goaded me with her kisses and caresses. But, oh, horrors! In the midst of her kisses my mind turned to the young fellow and when I felt her lips, so warm, I thought it was the boy’s lips. I pushed her, scared, out of my arms, pretending I did not feel well, and hurried back home.

“I was so excited that for a long time I could not fall asleep. I decided I would fight the insane passion. I had heard before passingly about boy love, knew also that it was the custom and fashion of the day in ancient Greece, but I myself had never before entertained the least thought of a man or boy. I felt I ought to remain a teacher no longer if I failed to conquer the feeling and to master the impression of the dream picture on my mind, conjured up, undoubtedly, by unconscious wishes. I resolved tobe strict with myself, to give up the attachment to the boy, and to avoid his company after school hours. For it was I who first spoke up and invited him to keep me company on the way home. I resolved to be strong and to devote once more all my affection and my love to my bride.

“Next school day I forced myself not to turn my gaze towards the boy’s seat. But I could not help looking that way and the first glance rushed the blood to my cheeks. He was as beautiful as a Greek boy, his form so delicate, his eyes so smiling,—I could have lost myself for hours in the contemplation of that wonderful face. I roused from my day dreaming, which, fortunately, had passed unnoticed by the class. But I wanted to neutralize the impression that my gazing at the boy may have made upon the class and called upon the boy. I was severe, unmercifully severe with him, and sought to catch him in some error. And who fails to find an error when looking hard for it? Then I reprimanded the boy so severely that he began to cry and returned to his seat weeping, and he was unable to quiet down for some time after that. Then I became really angry. I was trying to stifle the inner voice which was whispering: ‘It is unfair for you to torture thus the innocent boy; he is not responsible for your awful thoughts....’ I disregarded that and scolded him.

“On the street the boy did not dare to offer tojoin me. I hurried past him and wandered for hours on the streets like a madman. I reproached myself, regretting the lost opportunity for enjoying the boy’s company and wept over the breaking up of the beautiful friendship between scholar and teacher. I resolved to be fair the next day with the boy and to pay no attention to him. But a wild demoniac power, stronger than my good resolutions, impelled me once more to hurt the boy’s feelings and to humiliate him before the class. It looked as if I was bent on revenging myself on him for the trouble he had cost me. I knew that I punished myself doing so, that I suffered far more than the boy, although he, too, changed in appearance, became timid, looked badly and obviously suffered under the unjust treatment. I also became irritable, morose, nervous. I lost completely my nervous equilibrium. I began to avoid my bride’s company. It seemed to me a profanation on my part of her pure love so long as I was consumed with such passion for a boy. She also became cooler and more reserved, because she could not understand me.

“Eventually things improved at school. I learned to control myself and to act more fairly. We resumed the walks once more; the boy accompanied me again after school hours; sometimes we walked on and on for hours, and we even met specially during the holidays. In his company I felt happy and all my wishes seemed gratified. I enjoyed his beautyand his lively mind and counted the minutes to pass when we should meet again.

“Then something happened which opened my eyes. My bride wrote me a letter breaking up our engagement. It did not even affect me as deeply as I had thought it would, whenever reflecting previously on the possibility. Very well—I thought to myself—now you can devote yourself entirely to your beloved boy! At the same time I felt during the day the same physical excitation which I had theretofore experienced only in my dreams. Then I realized that I must avoid the boy if I was to keep from committing a crime. My first task, I thought, would be to make up again with the bride; secondly, I must give up the school so as to not meet the boy again. My bride was resolute, however, insisting that she had become convinced that I did not love her. I kept secrets from her. I was on the very point of confessing everything and of telling her the whole truth. I threw myself, weeping, to her feet. She said quietly: ‘Don’t! What is done cannot be undone. It is better that we should part. Don’t make the parting hard for me. Let’s leave one another good friends and think kindly of me.’ Then she hurried out of the room and left me to myself.

“Next day when I went to the school the boy was not there; he was ill. Another boy reported he was kept at home on account of scarlet fever. My anxiety about him was boundless. I could think ofnothing but that boy. A schoolmate had to bring me daily reports about his condition. Often I wandered in the neighborhood of his home, up and down the streets, and at night I watched the lamplit window of the room where a sister was taking care of him. Finally I heard that he was convalescing, that all danger was over, and that he would return to school in a few weeks. I had to keep a strong grip on myself at school to be able to carry on my lectures at all. My thoughts were perpetually centered on my beloved boy pupil. Continually I kept thinking: How many days longer must I keep longing? In three weeks he will be here! My heart danced with joy at the thought....

“There had to be a change. I could not keep on living that way. I took my father into confidence and he sent me to you, thinking that you would be able to furnish good advice and aid in this difficult case.”

I offered at first no advice and no help. To begin with, I allowed the love-sick fellow to speak out everything that was on his mind and that in itself lightened his burden. Then I undertook to obtain an insight into his mental life before the advent of his boy love.

It turned out that he had really loved and still loves but one person in the wide world: his sister. The affection for the bride was but a substitute forhis love of the sister. His bride was also homosexual and loved in him but the brother of her best girl friend. As the girl friend (his sister) cooled off during their engagement, preferring another friendship (obviously led thereto by unconscious jealousy of the brother), her own affection for the young man cooled off and she promptly made use of the opportunity to break off with him. The opportunity arose conveniently enough and the severing of the engagement reacted most painfully upon the school teacher who had reasons of his own for reproaching himself most bitterly.

The more his bride kept away from his sister the greater was his indifference to the bride. But the boy resembled his sister very closely.

He never thought of this similarity before. They had the same eyes, the same color of hair, and the same voice, and these played a strong rôle with him. During that critical period his sister was interested in a certain physician. He felt he was about to lose her affection and sought a substitute for her and that he found in his pupil....

Now he was in a position to come to an understanding with his sister. She had the requisite psychologic insight to understand him fully and to lend him intelligent assistance towards his recovery.

His whole tremendous excitation simmered down. The love for the boy calmed down to an attitude of kindly interest which no longer troubled him. Hetook his walks only with his sister who often called for him at the school. Months later I heard that he was very quiet and had no reason to complain. He succeeded in sublimating his affection for the sister into joint intellectual interests, insofar as that is possible. But frank relations create a healthy atmosphere in which it is easier to overcome incestuous phantasies than in the byways and hidden bypaths of repression and transference.

I have given a detailed account of this case because it is typical and because the transference of affection from the sister to a boy is more common than would be recognizeda prioriin the light of our current contributions on homosexuality. We must also bear in mind that the sister represents a younger likeness of the motherImago.[10]

But father, mother and sister do not exhaust the ideal of the homosexual. I also know cases—one I have described in a previous chapter—in which the love of an older brother plays a tremendous rôle.[11]We are thus led to the conclusion that fixation on the family plays a determinative rôle in the genesis of homosexuality, that homosexuality often may represent a flight from incest. True, we have also seen cases in which these roots are not traceable, particularly cases of late homosexuality. But why may not other psychic forces, manifesting themselves as hatred, disgust, fear and shame, likewise lead to homosexuality?

Love of the family is a form of narcissism. Every member of the family is a mirrored image of one’s own personality. One may love one’s self in one’s parents or other members of the intimate family circle more readily than through strangers.Leo Bergwas the first to express this truth and he has done it very clearly. In his inspiring work,Geschlechter(Kulturprobleme der Gegenwart, 2nd ser., Vol. II, Berlin, 1906), he states:

“What does the homosexual substitute for procreation? In the first place self-seeking, the love of like (die Liebe zum Gleichen), plays a greater rôle in his case than with the heterosexual who is responsive to the unlike, and that is why the instinct of procreation is as a rule very much weaker in the former though not entirely absent. A young physician who confessed to me that he was homosexual, told me of a colleague who was passionately attached to a child. It was a powerful motherly instinct in him, a sign of his female sensitiveness in a male body; he is wholly womanly, a submissive being, and loves like a woman cursed only because he cannot bear a child for the man of his heart.”

Bergalso points out that the homosexuals transfer to the intellectual sphere their reproductive and creative urge.

The case mentioned byBergshows nothing in itself more than a complete identification with the mother. But I have observed long ago that this love of the like bears some relations to purposive sterility. The homosexual renounces the immortality implied in procreation. (Many homosexual artists achieve immortality in the realm of spiritual endeavor.) Such an attitude discloses a revolt against natural law and order. The homosexual,in fact, always conceives himself as unique. The world contains not his equal and that feeling is the hidden source of his pride. The “bearing of aloofness,” already pointed out byFreimark,[12]the pride of being “different,” determine also his opposition to the procreative instinct. He does not care to be like others. Against the notion that God had ordained man to have offspring he wants to oppose all teleology and, in spite of God, maintain a purposeless, meaningless love, contrary to nature, a love for its own sake. Conceivably women manifest even more clearly the corresponding revulsion against the motherly instinct.

Who will deny that fear of children, of motherhood, is an important social manifestation? Can it be that this fear is characteristic only of women and is not shared also by men? May it not manifest itself as a form of flight from sexual determinism? We need only look around us. There are any number of married couples who want no children and others who want no more than a child or two. Undoubtedly this state of things is partly due to homosexuality, to a deviation from the biblical injunction concerning the duty of increasing offspring. But let us also glance over our professional experience. The relationship between children and their parents carries within itself the beginnings ofa new phase. The everlasting conflict between the new and the old generation, between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, children and parents, requires, fosters new forms. Not without reason has our age been called “the century of the child” with its slogan raised about the Rights of Children. The greater the (unconsciously motivated) antagonism of the child against his parents, the stronger will be the fear of its own children, who loom up as potential enemies and rivals.[13]It seems that our own image attracts and repels us at the same time, that there is a fear of the like as strong as the fear of the unlike. The aboriginal conflict between the old and the new goes on forever within us. Hungry for the new though we be, yet we cling to the old. Having acquired the new we turn longingly to the old.

This bipolarity shows itself nowhere so distinctly as upon the sexual sphere. It means that contraries have the power of sexual attraction. That is an observation substantiated by everyday experience. But there is an extreme point at which the opposite touches upon the like.Les extrêmes se touchent, extremes meet. In each of us there lives also another who is the precise counterpart of ourselves. In the other sex we love our counterpart and throughthe love for our own sex we endeavor to run away from that counterpart.

The mother instinct and hatred of motherhood are not split in the human soul. The homosexual woman always shows the hatred of motherhood and her alleged love of children, when such a sentiment is claimed at all, proves but a self-deception and lip-service at best. In our study offemale dyspareuniawe propose fully to prove that conclusion in connection with the histories of several homosexual women. We do find many instances of alleged affection for children but in reality these are only caricatures of the true sentiment and only rarely the affection as it is characteristic of normal woman. Our school teacher in love with the boy pupil, whose case we gave in full in the preceding pages, did not love children as such and did not care to have children of his own. Through his love for the boy the repressed father instinct also found outlet.

The life histories of homosexual women differ from those of males only in the fact that occasionally there seems present a certain yearning for children, as if the child could bring about release from the passion and a new state of bliss. Beyond that theurlindshows the same psychogenesis as theurning. There is a strong fixation on the family, though not always on the father, asHirschfeldclaims. In addition to that, rather commonly there is found affectionfor the mother which is fairly open, and tenderness for some sister which persists through life and assumes remarkable masks.

I want to conclude this chapter with the histories of some cases of female homosexuality which may serve to illustrate clearly the points I have just made:

69. Miss Ilse—we shall call her by that name—after a series of various exciting episodes has fallen a victim to depression, during which she lost a great deal of weight, but in spite of a successful fattening régime her stay at a sanitarium did not effect a complete cure. She is an impressively attractive girl, 24 years of age, voluptuous, feminine in every way up to her angular, somewhat energetic nose and prominent, curved eyebrows. Her mother, of whom the girl speaks with much feeling, believes that the girl’s breakdown dates from the death of the father. Ilse irritatedly contradicts the mother several times, breaking into a quarrelsome attitude towards her mother over trifles. Reprimanded by her mother, she falls into her depression and speaks no word. I take her under treatment and for a week I have in her a heavy burden on my hands. She hardly says anything, is very negativistic in her attitude, only muttering from time to time: “Don’t trouble yourself. It will never be any different. Better give me something that will put me quickly out of theway.” She livens up somewhat only when referring to her father,—thinks he should have not passed away. The mother should have called in a specialist. In fact, it was as much her fault as anybody’s, for she had failed to insist on calling the best aid while there was time.

Gradually she extends me her confidence and one day she appears,—like a changed person. She must tell me the truth. She is not a normal person. Since childhood she has been homosexual and had never cared for men. Her mother had implied as much when she said to me: “I cannot understand the girl. She always fled from the room when young men called on Alfred (her brother). The girl is a man hater.” This fact the girl had denied during the first visit, but now she herself admitted. She had never cared for men. On the other hand, at 11 years of age she had already fallen passionately in love with a woman school teacher. She was a frolicsome girl, often wore her brother’s clothes, and played with all the young boys of the neighborhood. At 14 years of age she again fell in love with a girl friend.

Her current depression is due to a terrible disappointment. She had maintained a love affair with a French woman and was happy. She said nothing about the character of the relations, but admitted that they were very intimate. Suddenly she found out that the French woman was not true to her, but was keeping up intimate relations more often withother girls than with her. She suffered tremendously on account of her jealousy. She began to feel a disgust against all women not unlike her former aversion to men. Asked why she was so antagonistic to men, she answered: “Because they are, all, without exception, disgusting brutes....”

At this point Ilse begins to relate her past experiences. She was seven years of age when she visited an uncle. He showed her his bigmembrum virileand asked her to hold it in her hand. She did this as well as other things he requested herusque et ejaculationem. “How shall I have any respect for men when they don’t hesitate thus to poison the innocent soul of a child?” The uncle is still living.... She has since thought that it must be some morbid tendency and has forgiven him. “It happened only a few times and the uncle believes I have forgotten it....”

Another traumatic incident impressed her more seriously; it was, in fact, a series of traumas. Her mother was a light-minded person and is so to this day, despite her 50 years. But she knows enough to dress herself so attractively and with such a display of refinement that she is still capable of achieving conquests. There follow a number of serious complaints against the mother, which must have been true, for I have had opportunity to convince myself of the truth of some of the statements. The mother always kept on the string a number of loverswho gratified her extravagant requirements. As a child she had been taken along to a number of rendezvous and has repeatedly witnessed the display of tendernesses between the lovers. She also recalled various household scenes from her early childhood. As a child she was already very sensuous and masturbated jointly with the sister and the brother. She was precocious as well as prematurely spoiled and every one thought she would early turn out to be like her mother. Then her sister underwent a great change in character. She became religious and wanted to join a nunnery. She made fun of her religious-minded sister but secretly admired her for her chastity. She was 14 years of age at the time. She now knows that she was in love with the family physician and that she was interested in men, but at the same time she was in love at different times with various teachers and girl friends. When her sister was 16 years of age she had a love affair with an army lieutenant and had to go to a sanitarium to be curetted, fever set in after the operation, and for several weeks the girl was seriously ill.

Her sister’s experience shook her to pieces. Inwardly she had been proud that there was such a pure, innocent girl in the family. Now that her sister followed the example of her mother it seemed to her that she, too, was fated to follow in the same path and that there could be no escape for her. During that period her character underwent achange and she acquired a tremendous dislike for all small children. She could not suffer to see a small child. She thought to herself, if she were its mother she would strangle it. The feeling was so horrible that she could not sleep. In time she improved somewhat, but the dislike of children or, rather, the fear of them, that is, the fear that she might do some harm to them, never left her.

I suspected that back of this feeling-attitude towards the children might be found the solution of her problem. I reverted back to her sixteenth year, for it was at that period that she turned definitely against all men.

“Why do you hate children?”

“Not that, exactly.... In fact, I was at one time foolish over them. I have always wanted children. When I told you that I always played boyish games it was not exactly the truth. I remember now that I played nurse to my doll and that we often played the game of childbirth. Brother was the doctor and I was the pregnant lady in bed.”

“Did you happen to witness childbirth as a little girl?”

“Yes, everything.... Our aunt gave birth to a child in our home,—a romantic story. An illegitimate child; her parents were not to know anything about the birth, or they would have disowned her. But we children knew everything. Afterwards shemarried the man but was very unhappy with him. The little baby was with us for a time. I was very fond of it and carried it around....”

“Have you other such aunts in the family?”

“Between us: mother’s family has a poor reputation. There were six sisters, each more flighty than the next. None was a virgin at marriage. Things were always happening and there was never any peace. That is why I was so shocked over sister’s experience. I was getting to think it was my fate also to become ... merely a prostitute. You will pardon me for speaking so harshly about my own mother. But unfortunately it is the truth....”

“A prostitute is purchasable.... There is some difference whether one is light-minded through passion or for gain.”

(After a lengthy pause.) “Just what I did find out at the time. Mother was to be had for money. Father was a humble employee, an unsuccessful jurist, who eked out a living doing secretarial service for an attorney. He could not keep up with the large household expenses even though he occasionally transacted a business deal on the side which netted him a considerable sum. Mother always had a friend who took care of our needs. Thus we were brought up rather well educated, my brother could afford to study, we did everything.”

“Did you know all that already as a child?”

“I knew it at a very early age....”

“You think, then, that your sister was also paid and that she sold herself?”

“No, nothing like that. In addition to the paying lover mother always had one, a purely heart affair, on the side. It was funny! The men always brought us candies and all sorts of presents. When we grew older mother became a little more careful. Still, there was enough going on to bring shame as I look back. And so there came into our house also a young lieutenant whom mother had picked up—God knows where. This fellow was mother’s avowed lover and could do as he pleased. The terrible thing was that he began to pursue also sister and after a few jealousy quarrels mother had to put up with it,—she perhaps even encouraged the affair. For I overheard once a talk between them and heard mother reproach ‘Shikki,’—that was the lieutenant’s nickname,—that he had used sister. She could have obtained a large sum of money for the girl because she was a virgin and the girl would have been provided for. Then there followed bitter quarrels between mother and sister.”

I interrupt the conversation at this point. It turns out that she, too, was in love with the lieutenant, and so were the others of the household, including the father and the brother; she was also jealous of her mother. Her jealousy opened hereyes. That is how it happened that she heard the unpleasant rumors about her mother circulating among the neighbors. She began hating her mother, but that continued only for a short time. Then her hatred turned to children. She hated first herself, the child who bore no respect for the mother. She did not want to be like her mother and her sister. She knew that she would have to submit to similar experiences; that her fate was sealed. She strove against her feminine and motherly instincts. But the analysis disclosed that she really entertained one supreme wish which she was unwilling to countenance openly: she wanted to be a mother and to bear many, many children. But the neurotic reaction thwarted her powerful motherly instinct. To be a mother meant identification with the despised mother. Her better feelings prompted her to draw herself far apart from the mother.

She did not want to be a woman. She did not want to be so easy-going as her mother. At that time her brother also showed a temperamental change. He became serious-minded, began to write verses, and to take an interest in all sorts of idealistic endeavors. She linked herself to him and before long she differentiated herself completely from the rest of the household, and particularly from the mother. She sought earnest-minded girl friends and came into frequent contact with her brother’s companions, but was unapproachable, eventhough she expressed herself freely and frankly about all subjects. Her strongly sensuous temperament threw her next into the arms of the Frenchwoman and she preferred that to a love affair with a man as she was afraid of children. After the Frenchwoman’s breach of loyalty she fell into her depression.

This circumstance also disclosed an interesting sidelight. She confessed to me that the Frenchwoman was also her brother’s sweetheart. It had never been mentioned by the woman but she knew it even before she entered into intimate relations with her. Nevertheless it was her happiest period.

The depression is thus traceable to a second source. The brother had abandoned the Frenchwoman, having chosen another sweetheart, of whom he was very fond and whom he intended to marry. The Frenchwoman was only a sensuous play affair with him, the brother belonged wholly to her. They were always together and she knew all his secrets. She was never jealous when she knew that he kept up relations with some girl or woman so long as he did not love soulfully. But now the brother became acquainted with a wealthy, beautiful girl, with whom he fell in love and whom he was going actually to marry. This, for the brother, lucky event,—came to nothing in the end on account of the opposition of the girl’s family,—left her cool. All she saw was that she was losing her brother, and that he nolonger belonged to her. He could not marry the girl because her parents required that he should first prove his ability to support her. But the two lovers agreed to wait for one another and the brother had gone already pretty far and he may yet succeed to marry the girl, despite the mother’s deplorable reputation. He lives no longer with his family and avoids the old home. He only sees her from time to time and they are still good old pals, whenever they meet....

Back to Index Next