Chance and the Goblin Tricks of the Unconscious

Example 11. A lady has spent the evening out of doors with her husband and two other gentlemen. One of these two is her intimate friend, of which, however, the others know nothing and must know nothing. The friends accompany the married couple to their front door. While they wait for it to be opened, leave is taken. The lady bows to the stranger, gives him her hand and says a few civil words. Then she reaches for the arm of her secret lover, turns to her husband and is about to take leave of him in the same way. Unsuspecting, he enters into the situation in jest, raises his hat and says, over-politely: “I kiss your hand, gracious lady!” The startled woman lets go of her lover’s arm, and still has time, before the porter appears, to keep up the saving tone of jest and to sigh: “No, that such a thing should happen to one!”

This example of Freud’s belongs to the kind in which the seemingly chance action or gesture expresses a secret thought in mime. Such symbolic utterances lie in the cases that follow, too.

Example 12. After a discussion that I thought stimulating, but nothing more, Herr B. takes leave of me and drops a glove as he does so. The next day I receive a vehement letter from him, and indeed, against my expectation, a lasting quarrel develops. Now I understand the losing of the glove: he has thrown down the gauntlet to me!

The enervating time of the war favoured all sorts of parapraxes in daily life; in particular one easily misread. I myself was as if possessed by a goblin whose witty vein alone halfway reconciled me to his otherwise tormenting presence.

Example 55. One of the torments my imp put me through was that hardly a single day went by any longer on which I could take in correctly the bold-type headlines in the newspapers (I had already given up reading more). Before my eyes die heutige Kriegslage (today’s war situation) turned into die heutige Kriegslüge (today’s war lie); the Schwierigkeiten (difficulties) of the ministry into Schmierigkeiten (greasinesses); the street fights in Dublin were moved, with foreboding, to Döbling (a suburb of Vienna). Against the glorification of an exhibition of war pictures as the highest Malkultur (culture of painting), my demon defended himself, not without justice, by branding it the highest Makulatur (waste paper). Repeatedly the place Kinoschau intrigued me: confound it, does it lie in Moravia or in China? But no, it is cinemas that are spoken of (a Kinoschau, a picture show), where I, again confusing China with Japan, had expected kimonos, or else Kinoschau cheese. Indeed, these foodstuffs altogether! Did I not read of an ultimatum from the Konserven (tinned goods, for Konservativen, Conservatives) to the government, and of an entspeisten (unfed, for entgleisten, derailed) goods train? The coffee with feindlichem (enemy, for feinstem, finest) aroma springs from despair at the home-grown substitutes. There is a dig at social idolatry, no doubt, in Countess X. X.’s Fetischablösung (fetish redemption, for Freitischablösung, a fund for free meals), while the association of blonder (blond, for bildender, fine-art) women artists walks gentler paths. It is no rose-tinted spectacles that read in advance, in the promised Völkerbund (League of Nations), a biting Völkerhund (dog of nations), that let me always scent the Abschuss (shooting down) in the promised Abschluss (conclusion), that brand the brigade commander out of hand as a brigand, and that in the advertisements turn the recommended innocent Mauersäge (masonry saw) into Mauersärge (wall coffins) and the apparatus for Selbstrasierer (self-shavers) into one for Selbstmörder (self-murderers). My goblin had a fine nose when he regularly dictated to me Sachdemolierung (demolition of goods) instead of Sachdemobilisierung (demobilization of goods), and when he scented out of the Fremdenverkehrskonferenzen (tourist-traffic conferences) the Fremdenverkehrsstörungen (tourist-traffic disturbances) in Vienna.

Example 66. Strindberg describes (pp. 270 ff.) as an eyewitness a case that does not concern himself. One of his young friends has horrible visions of a decaying corpse; in cheerful company he tells his latest night vision. People smile at it, and the young man joins in himself; indeed he begins to dissect his adventure with cynical remarks down to its disgusting details. “Can you imagine, the corpse was quite black, and the white maggots came swarming out of the trunk.” At this moment he turned pale, rose from the table and pointed shuddering at his plate. There, Strindberg attests it, a white maggot was crawling along a sardine. One may be sure that the narrator had already perceived the maggot beforehand and had been prompted by it to his mention of the maggots. Compare Nos. 52, 54, also 7.

Strindberg is not delivered over to his delusion without criticism. His penetrating mind recognizes the hidden mechanism, even if, with Swedenborg, he lays it in mythical hands: “The chastising spirits take possession of the imagination of the one deserving punishment and work by this means for his amendment from his wickedness, by making him perceive everything in distorted form.” (p. 348.) He also says of the wonderfully closed hostile nets that ensnare him (p. 112): “Persecution mania! Maybe; but the artist who forges the links of these hellish syllogisms, where is he?” We may answer: In yourself!

Example 75. Dr W. Stekel, in his “The Obligation of the Name,” tells of a Herr Gross (Great) who suffered from megalomania, of a Herr Kleiner (Smaller) who suffered from a tormenting feeling of smallness. A Herr Breier took almost nothing but Brei (porridge). A Herr Bauer (Peasant) dreamed of aristocratic ancestors; a Herr Fürst (Prince) turned out to be a passionate Social Democrat. A Herr Heim (Home) felt unhappy in marriage. Once a patient came who complained of constant doubts. He was employed by a large firm, had certain accounts to keep, and was perpetually pursued by the delusion that he had made a mistake. “I am never sure,” he complained. And his name was, after all, Sicher (Sure). A man who felt well only going out at night and in forests, playing the beast of prey as it were, was called Wolf. Herr Katz (Cat) too has instincts of the kind, and laments besides that he is “für die Katz” (for the cat, that is, good for nothing). Herr Reich (Rich) suffers from ideas about money, Reiner (Purer) from a fear of dirt, Vollmann (Full man) from depressions and the fear of not filling his place fully, Blass (Pale) from congestions that make him red as a lobster. Herr Frisch (Fresh) feels tired; Herr Herz (Heart) accuses himself of heartlessness.