Freud - Complete Works (227 page)

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1284

   A lady of my acquaintance
understandably refrained from visiting the theatre while in
mourning for her old mother. There were only a few days still to
elapse before the end of her year of mourning, and she allowed
herself to be persuaded by her friends to buy a ticket for a
particularly interesting performance. On reaching the theatre she
made the discovery that she had lost the ticket. She thought
afterwards that she had thrown it away with her tram ticket on
leaving the tram. This lady used to pride herself on never losing
anything through carelessness.

   It is therefore fair to assume
that another experience she had of losing something was not without
a good reason either. On her arrival at a health resort she decided
to pay a visit to a pension where she had stayed on an earlier
occasion. She was welcomed there as an old friend and entertained,
and when she wanted to pay she was told she was to look on herself
as a guest; but this she did not feel was quite proper. It was
agreed that she might leave something for the maid who had waited
on her, so she opened her purse to put a one mark note on the
table. In the evening the pension’s manservant brought her a
five mark note which had been found under the table and which the
proprietress thought must belong to the lady. She must therefore
have dropped it from her purse in getting out the tip for the maid.
She had probably wanted to pay her bill in spite of everything.

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1285

   An article of some length by Otto
Rank (1911) makes use of dream-analysis to expose the sacrificial
mood that forms the basis of this act, and to reveal its deeper
motives.¹ It is of interest when he writes later that often
not only losing objects but also,
finding
them appears to be
determined. In what sense this is to be understood may be gathered
from his story, which I include here (Rank, 1915
a
). It is
obvious that in cases of losing, the object is already provided; in
cases of finding, it has first to be looked for.

   ‘A girl who was materially
dependent on her parents wished to buy a piece of cheap jewellery.
She enquired in the shop about the price of the article she
fancied, but was disappointed to find that it cost more than the
sum she had saved. All the same, it was only a matter of two kronen
that stood between her and this small pleasure. In a depressed mood
she began to stroll home through the streets, which were thronged
with the evening crowds. Though she describes herself as having
been deep in thought, she suddenly noticed lying on the ground, in
one of the busiest squares, a small piece of paper which she had
just passed by without attending to it. She turned round, picked it
up and was astonished to find it was a folded two kronen note. She
thought: "This has been sent me by fate so that I can buy the
jewellery", and started happily back with the idea of taking
the hint. But at the same moment she told herself that she ought
not to do so, since money that one finds is lucky money and should
not be spent.

   ‘The bit of analysis which
would make this "chance action" intelligible may probably
be inferred from the situation described, even in the absence of
personal information from the girl herself. Among the reflections
that occupied her mind as she was walking home, the thought of her
poverty and her restricted material position must no doubt have
bulked large; moreover we may guess that that thought took the form
of a wishful removal of her straitened circumstances. The idea of
how the required sum could most easily be obtained will surely have
arisen from her interest in satisfying her modest wish; and it will
have suggested the simplest solution - namely, that of finding the
money. In this way her unconscious (or preconscious) was
predisposed towards "finding", even though - owing to
claims on her attention from other quarters ("deep in
thought") - the actual thought did not become fully conscious
to her. We may go further and, on the strength of similar cases
which have been analysed, actually assert that
unconscious
"readiness to look for something" is much more likely to
lead to success than consciously directed attention. Otherwise it
would be almost impossible to explain how it was that precisely
this one person out of the many hundreds of passers-by - and with
all the difficulties caused by the poor street-lighting and the
dense crowds - was able to make the find that came as a surprise to
her herself. Some indication of the actual strength of this
unconscious or preconscious readiness may be obtained from the
remarkable fact that
after
making this find - that is, at a
time when the attitude had become superfluous and had certainly
been removed from conscious attention - the girl found a
handkerchief at a later point on her way home, in a dark and lonely
part of a suburban street.’

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1917:] Other
articles on the same topic will be found in the
Zentralblatt
für Psychoanalyse
,
2
, and in the
Internationale
Zetschrift für Psychoanalyse
,
1
(1913).

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1286

   It must be said that it is
precisely such symptomatic acts that often offer the best approach
to an understanding of people’s intimate mental life.

   Turning now to the chance actions
that occur sporadically, I will report an example which suggested a
comparatively deep interpretation even without analysis. It gives a
clear illustration of the conditions under which such symptoms can
be produced entirely unobtrusively, and it enables me to subjoin a
remark of practical importance. In the course of a summer holiday
it happened that I had to wait a few days at a particular place for
the arrival of my travelling companion. In the meantime I made the
acquaintance of a young man who also seemed to be lonely and was
willing enough to join me. As we were staying at the same hotel it
was natural for us to take all our meals and walks together. On the
afternoon of the third day he suddenly told me that he was
expecting his wife to arrive by train that evening. My
psychological interest was now aroused, for I had already been
struck that morning by my companion’s rejecting my proposal
for a longish expedition and objecting during our short walk to
taking a certain path which he said was too steep and dangerous. On
our afternoon walk he suddenly remarked that I must no doubt be
hungry; I must certainly not delay my evening meal on his account -
he was going to wait for his wife to arrive and have supper with
her. I took the hint and sat down to dinner while he went to the
station. Next morning we met in the hall of the hotel. He
introduced me to his wife and then said: ‘You’ll have
breakfast with us, won’t you?’ I had first to go on a
small errand in the next street, but promised to be back soon. When
I entered the breakfast room, I saw that the couple were both
sitting on the same side of a small table by the window. On the
opposite side there was only one chair; the husband’s big,
heavy waterproof cape had been hung over the back of it, covering
the seat. I understood very well the meaning of the coat’s
being arranged in that way; it had certainly not been done
deliberately and was therefore all the more expressive. It meant:
‘There’s no room for you here, you’re superfluous
now.’ The husband failed to notice that I was standing in
front of the table without sitting down; but his wife did, and
quickly nudged her husband and whispered: ‘Look, you’ve
taken up the gentleman’s seat.’

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1287

   This and other similar
experiences have led me to conclude that actions carried out
unintentionally must inevitably become the source of
misunderstandings in human relations. The agent, who knows nothing
of there being an intention connected with these actions, does not
feel that they are chargeable to him and does not hold himself
responsible for them. The second party, on the other hand, since he
regularly bases his conclusions as to the agent’s intentions
and sentiments on such actions among others, knows more of the
other’s psychical processes than that person himself is ready
to admit or believes he has communicated. The agent, indeed, grows
indignant if these conclusions drawn from his symptomatic acts are
brought up against him; he declares them to be baseless, since he
is not conscious of having had the intention at the time they were
carried out, and complains of being misunderstood by the second
party. Strictly considered, misunderstandings of his kind are based
on too intimate and too extensive understanding. The more two
people suffer from ‘nerves’, the more readily will they
give each other cause for disputes, the responsibility for which
each disclaims just as decidedly in regard to himself as he
considers it certain in regard to the other person. And this is no
doubt the punishment for people’s internal dishonesty in only
giving expression under the pretext of forgetting, bungling and
doing things unintentionally to impulses that would better be
admitted to themselves and to others if they can no longer be
controlled. It can in fact be said quite generally that everyone is
continually practising psychical analysis on his neighbours and
consequently learns to know them better than they know themselves.
The road whose goal it is to observe the precept
γυώθι
σεαντόυ
¹
runs
viâ
the study of one’s own apparently
accidental actions and omissions.

  
¹
[‘Know thyself’]

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1288

   Of all the writers who have from
time to time passed comment on our minor symptomatic acts and
parapraxes, or who have made use of them, none has understood their
secret nature so clearly or exhibited them in so uncannily lifelike
a manner as Strindberg - a man whose genius in recognizing such
things was, it is true, assisted by grave mental abnormality. Dr.
Karl Weiss of Vienna (1913) has drawn attention to the following
passage in one of his works:

   ‘After a while the Count
did in fact come, and he approached Esther quietly, as though he
had a
rendezvous
with her.

   ‘"Have you been
waiting long?" he asked in his low voice.

   ‘"Six months, as you
know," answered Esther; "but did you see me
to-day?"

   ‘"Yes, just now, in
the tram: and I looked into your eyes feeling that I was talking to
you."

   ‘"A great deal has
‘happened’ since the last time."

   ‘"Yes, and I believed
it was all over between us."

   ‘"How so?"

   ‘"All the little gifts
that I had from you broke in pieces - in an occult way, what is
more. But that is something that has been noticed long, long
ago."

   ‘"Dear me! Now I
remember a whole set of events that I took to be accidents. Once I
was given a pair of pince-nez by my grandmother, at a time we were
good friends. They were made of polished rock-crystal and were
excellent for making post-mortems - a real miracle of which I took
the greatest care. One day I broke with the old lady and she was
angry with me. And during the next post-mortem the lenses happened
to fall out for no reason. I thought they were simply broken and
sent them to be repaired. But no, they went on refusing to help me;
they were put in a drawer and got lost."

   ‘"Dear me! Strange
that things that concern the eyes should be the most sensitive. I
was once given some opera glasses by a friend; they suited my eyes
so well that it was a pleasure to use them. This friend and I fell
out. You know how it happens without visible cause; it seems as
though one were not allowed to be in harmony. The next time I
wanted to use the opera glasses I could not see clearly. The
cross-piece was too short and I saw two images. I don’t need
to tell you that the cross-piece had not grown shorter and my eyes
had not grown further apart! It was a miracle that happens every
day - one that bad observers do not notice. How can we explain it?
The psychical power of hatred must be greater than we
suppose
. - What is more, the ring that I had from you has lost
its stone and will not let itself be repaired; no, it will not. Do
you want to part from me, then? . . ."’
(
The Gothic Rooms
, German trans., p. 258 f.)

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1289

   In the field of symptomatic acts,
too, psycho-analytic observation must concede priority to
imaginative writers. It can only repeat what they have said long
ago. Wilhelm Stross has drawn my attention to the following passage
in Laurence Sterne’s celebrated humorous novel,
Tristram
Shandy
(Volume VI, Chapter V):

   ‘. . . And I am not at all
surprised that
Gregory of Nazianzum
, upon observing the
hasty and untoward gestures of
Julian
, should foretell he
would one day become an apostate; - or that St.
Ambrose
should turn his
Amanuensis
out of doors, because of an
indecent motion of his head, which went backwards and forwards like
a flail; - or that
Democritus
should conceive
Protagoras
to be a scholar, from seeing him bind up a
faggot, and thrusting, as he did it, the small twigs inwards. -
There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which
let a penetrating eye at once into a man’s soul; and I
maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his
hat in coming into a room, - or take it up in going out of it, but
something escapes, which discovers him.’