Freud - Complete Works (229 page)

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1297

   (7) The local school-teacher at a
summer resort, a quite poor but handsome young man, persisted in
his courtship of the daughter of the proprietor of a villa, who
came from the capital, until the girl fell passionately in love
with him and even persuaded her family to give their approval to
the marriage in spite of the differences in their social position
and race. One day the teacher wrote a letter to his brother in
which he said: ‘The girl is certainly no beauty; but she is
very sweet, and it would be all right as far as that goes. But
whether I shall be able to make up my mind to marry a Jewess I
cannot yet tell you.’ This letter was received by his
fiancée and it put an end to the engagement, while at the
same time his brother was wondering at the protestations of love
addressed to him. My informant assured me that this
was
an
error and not a cunning device. I know of another case in which a
lady who was dissatisfied with her old doctor but unwilling openly
to get rid of him achieved her purpose by mixing up two letters.
Here at least I can guarantee that it was error and not conscious
cunning that made use of this
motif
which is such a familiar
one in comedy.

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1298

   (8) Brill tells of a lady who
asked him for news of a common acquaintance and in doing so called
her in error by her maiden name. When her attention was drawn to
the mistake she was forced to admit that she disliked the
lady’s husband and had been very unhappy about her
marriage.

   (9) Here is an error which can
also be described as a slip of the tongue. A young father presented
himself before the registrar of births to give notice of the birth
of his second daughter. When asked what the child’s name was
to be he answered: ‘Hanna’, and had to be told by the
official that he already had a child of that name. We may conclude
that the second daughter was not quite so welcome as the first had
been.

   (10) I will add some other
observations of confusion between names; they might of course have
been equally well included in other chapters of this book.

   A lady is the mother of three
daughters two of whom have long been married; the youngest is still
awaiting her destiny. At both weddings a lady who is a friend of
the family gave the same present, an expensive silver tea-service.
Every time the conversation turns to this tea-service the mother
makes the error of saying that the third daughter owns it. It is
clear that this error expresses the mother’s wish to see her
last daughter married too - on the assumption that she would be
given the same wedding present.

   The frequent cases in which a
mother confuses the names of her daughters, sons or sons-in-law are
just as easy to interpret.

   (11) Here is a good example of an
obstinate interchange of names; I borrow it from a Herr J. G. who
made the observation on himself during a stay in a sanatorium:

   ‘At dinner one day (at the
sanatorium) I was having a conversation, which did not interest me
much and was entirely conventional in tone, with the lady who was
next to me at table, when in the course of it I used a phrase of
special affability. The somewhat elderly spinster could not help
commenting that it was not usually my habit to behave to her with
such affability and gallantry - a rejoinder which contained not
only a certain regret but also an obvious dig at a young lady we
both knew to whom I was in the way of being somewhat attentive.
Naturally I understood at once. In the course of our further
conversation I had to have it repeatedly pointed out to me by my
neighbour, to my great embarrassment, that I had addressed her by
the name of the young lady whom she regarded with some justice as
her more fortunate rival.’

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1299

   (12) I will also report as an
‘error’ an incident with a serious background, which
was told me by a witness who was closely involved. A lady spent an
evening out of doors with her husband and two strangers. One of
these two ‘strangers’ was an intimate friend of hers;
but the others knew nothing of this and were meant to know nothing.
The friends accompanied the married couple to the door of their
house and while they were waiting for the door to be opened they
took their leave of one another. The lady bowed to the stranger,
gave him her hand and said a few polite words. Then she took the
arm of her secret lover, turned to her husband and began to bid him
good-bye in the same way. Her husband entered into the situation,
raised his hat and said with exaggerated politeness:
‘Good-bye, dear lady!’ The horrified wife dropped her
lover’s arm and before the concierge appeared had time to
exclaim: ‘Goodness! What a stupid thing to happen!’ The
husband was one of those married men who want to put an act of
infidelity on their wife’s part beyond the bounds of
possibility. He had repeatedly sworn that in such a case more than
one life would be in jeopardy. He therefore had inner impediments
of the strongest kind to prevent his noticing the challenge
contained in this error.

   (13) Here is an error of one of
my patients: the fact that it was repeated in order to express a
contrary meaning makes it particularly instructive. After
protracted internal struggles this over-cautious young man brought
himself to the point of proposing marriage to the girl who had long
been in love with him, as he was with her. He escorted his
fiancée
home, said good-bye to her, and, in a mood of
the greatest happiness, got on to a tram and asked the conductress
for
two
tickets. About six months later he had got married
but could not yet adjust himself to his conjugal bliss. He wondered
whether he had done the right thing in marrying, missed his former
relations with his friends, and had every sort of fault to find
with his parents-in-law. One evening he fetched his young wife from
her parents’ house, got on to a tram with her and contented
himself with asking for one ticket only.

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1300

   (14)  How a wish that has
been reluctantly suppressed can be satisfied by means of an
‘error’ is described in a good example of
Maeder’s (1908). A colleague who had a day free from duties
wanted to enjoy it without any interruptions; but he was due to pay
a visit in Lucerne to which he did not look forward. After long
deliberation he decided to go there all the same. He passed the
time on the journey from Zurich to Arth-Goldau in reading the daily
papers. At the latter station he changed trains and continued
reading. He travelled on till the ticket-inspector informed him
that he was in the wrong train - the one travelling back from
Goldau to Zurich, though he had a ticket for Lucerne.

   (15) An analogous, though not
entirely successful, attempt to help a suppressed wish to find
expression by means of the same mechanism of an error is described
by Dr. V. Tausk (1917) under the title of ‘Travelling in the
Wrong Direction’:

   ‘I had come to Vienna on
leave from the front. An old patient had heard I was in town and
invited me to visit him as he was ill in bed. I complied with his
request and spent two hours with him. When I was leaving, the sick
man asked how much he owed me. "I am here on leave and am not
practising now," I replied. "Please regard my visit as a
friendly turn." The patient hesitated, as he no doubt felt he
had no right to claim my professional services in the form of an
unremunerated act of friendship. But he finally accepted my answer
by expressing the respectful opinion, which was dictated by his
pleasure at saving money, that as a psycho-analyst I would no doubt
do the right thing. A few moments later I myself had misgivings
about the sincerity of my generosity, and with my mind full of
doubts - which could hardly be explained in more than one way - I
got on a tram of route X. After a short journey I had to change on
to route Y. While waiting at the point where I was to change I
forgot the business of the fee and was occupied with the symptoms
of my patient’s illness. Meanwhile the tram I was waiting for
came and I got on it. But at the next stop I had to get off again.
I had in fact inadvertently and without noticing got on to an X
tram instead of a Y tram, and had travelled back again in the
direction I had just come from - in the direction of my patient
from whom I did not wish to accept any fee.
But my unconscious
wanted to collect it
.’

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1301

   (16) A trick very similar to the
one in Example 14 was once brought off by me myself. I had promised
my strict eldest brother that that summer I would make my long due
visit to him at an English seaside resort, and had undertaken, as
time was limited, to travel by the shortest route, without breaking
my journey anywhere. I asked if I might stop for a day in Holland,
but he thought I might postpone that till my journey back. So I
travelled from Munich
viâ
Cologne to Rotterdam and the
Hook of Holland from where the boat starts at midnight for Harwich.
I had to change at Cologne; I left my train to change into the
Rotterdam express, but it was nowhere to be found. I asked various
railway officials, was sent from one platform to another, fell into
a mood of exaggerated despair and soon realized that during this
fruitless search I must have missed my connection. After this was
confirmed I considered whether I should spend the night in Cologne.
Among other considerations in favour of that plan was one of filial
piety, since according to an old family tradition my ancestors had
once fled from that city during a persecution of the Jews. However
I decided against it, travelled by a later train to Rotterdam,
which I reached late in the night, and was then obliged to spend a
day in Holland. That day brought me the fulfilment of a long
cherished wish; I was able to see Rembrandt’s magnificent
paintings at the Hague and in the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam. It was
only the next morning, when I was travelling in the train across
England and could collect my impressions, that a clear memory
emerged of my having seen a large notice in the station at Cologne
- a few steps from the place where I had got off the train and on
the same platform - which read ‘Rotterdam-Hook of
Holland’. There, waiting for me, had been the train in which
I ought to have continued my journey. My action in hurrying away in
spite of this clear direction, and my search for the train in
another place, would have to be described as an incomprehensible
‘blindness’ unless one is prepared to assume that -
contrary to my brother’s instructions - I had really resolved
to admire the Rembrandts on the journey out. Everything else - my
well-acted perplexity, the emergence of the ‘pious’
intention to spend the night in Cologne - was merely a contrivance
to keep my resolution hidden from myself till it had been
completely carried out.

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1302

   (17) From his own personal
experience J. Stärcke (1916) tells of a similar device
produced by ‘forgetfulness’ for the purpose of
fulfilling an ostensibly renounced wish.

   ‘I once had to give a
lecture with lantern slides at a village; but the lecture was
postponed for a week. I had answered the letter about the
postponement and had entered the new date in my notebook. I should
have been glad to go to this village in the afternoon, for then I
should have had time to pay a visit to a writer I knew who lived
there. To my regret, however, I had at the time no afternoon that I
could keep free. Somewhat reluctantly, I gave up the idea of the
visit.

   ‘When the evening of the
lecture arrived I set out for the station in the greatest hurry
with a case of lantern slides. I had to take a taxi to catch the
train. (It happens frequently with me that I put things off so long
that I have to take a taxi if I am to catch my train.) When I
reached my destination I was a little surprised that there was no
one at the station to meet me (as is the usual practice with
lectures in smallish places). It suddenly occurred to me that the
lecture had been postponed for a week and that I had made a
fruitless journey on the date that had originally been fixed. After
I had roundly cursed my forgetfulness, I debated whether I should
return home by the next train. However, upon closer consideration I
reflected that I now had a fine opportunity of paying the visit I
had wanted to, and I thereupon did so. It was only when I was on my
way that it struck me that my unfulfilled wish to have sufficient
time for this visit had neatly hatched the plot. Being weighed down
by the heavy case of lantern slides and hurrying to catch the train
could serve excellently to hide the unconscious intention all the
more effectively.’

The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life

1303

   It may perhaps be thought that
the class of errors whose explanation I have given here is not very
numerous or particularly significant. But I leave it open for
question whether there is not some ground for extending the same
line of approach to our assessment of the far more important
errors of judgement
made by human beings in their lives and
in scientific work. Only for the rarest and best adjusted mind does
it seem possible to preserve the picture of external reality, as it
is perceived, against the distortion to which it is normally
subjected in its passage though the psychical individuality of the
percipient.