Freud - Complete Works (354 page)

   Hans’s father translated
this phantasy as follows: ‘"I was in bed with Mummy.
Then Daddy came and drove me away. With his big penis he pushed me
out of my place by Mummy."'

   Let us suspend our judgement for
the present.

   ‘He went on to relate a
second idea that he had had: "We were travelling in the train
to Gmunden. In the station we put on our clothes; but we
couldn’t get it done in time, and the train carried us
on."

   ‘Later on, I asked:
"Have you ever seen a horse doing lumf?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes,
very often."

   ‘
I
: "Does it
make a loud row when it does lumf?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "What does
the row remind you of?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Like
when lumf falls into the chamber."

   ‘The bus-horse that falls
down and makes a row with its feet is no doubt - a lumf falling and
making a noise. His fear of defaecation and his fear of heavily
loaded carts is equivalent to the fear of a heavily loaded
stomach.’

   In this roundabout way
Hans’s father was beginning to get a glimmering of the true
state of affairs.

  
¹
‘Hans’s mother gives him his
bath.’

  
²
‘To take it away to be
repaired.’

Analysis Of A Phobia In A Five-Year-Old Boy

2054

   ‘April 11th. At luncheon
Hans said: "If only we had a bath at Gmunden, so that I
didn’t have to go to the public baths!" It is a fact
that at Gmunden he was always taken to the neighbouring public
baths to be given a hot bath - a proceeding against which he used
to protest with passionate tears. And in Vienna, too, he always
screams if he is made to sit or lie in the big bath. He must be
given his bath kneeling or standing.’

   Hans was now beginning to bring
fuel to the analysis in the shape of spontaneous utterances of his
own. This remark of his established the connection between his two
last phantasies - that of the plumber who unscrewed the bath and
that of the unsuccessful journey to Gmunden. His father had
correctly inferred from the latter that Hans had some aversion to
Gmunden. This, by the way, is another good reminder of the fact
that what emerges from the unconscious is to be understood in the
light not of what goes before but of what comes after.

   ‘I asked him whether he was
afraid, and if so of what.

   ‘
Hans
: "Because
of falling in."

   ‘
I
: "But why
were you never afraid when you had your bath in the little
bath?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Why, I
sat in that one. I couldn’t lie down in it, it was too
small."

   ‘
I
: "When you
went in a boat at Gmunden weren’t you afraid of falling into
the water?"

   ‘
Hans
: "No,
because I held on, so I couldn’t fall in. It’s only in
the big bath that I’m afraid of falling in."

   ‘
I
: "But Mummy
baths you in it. Are you afraid of Mummy dropping you in the
water?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"I’m afraid of her letting go and my head going
in."

   ‘
I
: "But you
know Mummy’s fond of you and won’t let go of
you."

   ‘
Hans
: "I only
just thought it."

   ‘
I
:
"Why?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I
don’t know at all."

   ‘
I
: "Perhaps it
was because you’d been naughty and thought she didn’t
love you any more?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "When you
were watching Mummy giving Hanna her bath, perhaps you wished she
would let go of her so that Hanna should fall in?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."'

   Hans’s father, we cannot
help thinking, had made a very good guess.

Analysis Of A Phobia In A Five-Year-Old Boy

2055

   ‘April 12th. As we were
coming back from Lainz in a second-class carriage, Hans looked at
the black leather upholstery of the seats, and said: "Ugh!
that makes me spit! Black drawers and black horses make me spit
too, because I have to do lumf."

   ‘
I
: "Perhaps
you saw something of Mummy’s that was black, and it
frightened you?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "Well, what
was it?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I
don’t know. A black blouse or black stockings."

   ‘
I
: "Perhaps it
was black hair near her widdler, when you were curious and
looked."

   ‘
Hans
(defending
himself): "But I didn’t see her widdler."

   ‘Another time, he was
frightened once more at a cart driving out of the yard gates
opposite. "Don’t the gates look like a behind?" I
asked.

   ‘
He
: "And the
horses are the lumfs!" Since then, whenever he sees a cart
driving out, he says: "Look, there’s a
‘lumfy’ coming!" This form of the word
("lumfy") is quite a new one to him; it sounds like a
term of endearment. My sister-in-law always calls her child
"Wumfy".

   ‘On April 13th he saw a
piece of liver in the soup and exclaimed: "Ugh! A lumf!"
Meat croquettes, too, he eats with evident reluctance, because
their form and colour remind him of lumf.

   ‘In the evening my wife
told me that Hans had been out on the balcony and had said: "I
thought to myself Hanna was on the balcony and fell down off
it." I had once or twice told him to be careful that Hanna did
not get too near the balustrade when she was out on the balcony;
for the railing was designed in the most unpractical way (by a
metal-worker of the Secessionist movement) and had big gaps in it
which I had to have filled in with wire netting. Hans’s
repressed wish was very transparent. His mother asked him if he
would rather Hanna were not there, to which he said
"Yes".

   ‘April 14th. The theme of
Hanna is uppermost. As you may remember from earlier records, Hans
felt a strong aversion to the new-born baby that robbed him of a
part of his parents’ love. This dislike has not entirely
disappeared and is only partly overcompensated by an exaggerated
affection.¹ He has already several times expressed a wish that
the stork should bring no more babies and that we should pay him
money not to bring any more "out of the big box" where
babies are. (Compare his fear of furniture-vans. Does not a bus
look like a big box?) Hanna screams such a lot, he says, and
that’s a nuisance to him.

  
¹
The ‘Hanna’ theme immediately
succeeded the ‘lumf’ theme, and the explanation of this
at length begins to dawn upon us: Hanna was a lumf herself - babies
were lumfs.

Analysis Of A Phobia In A Five-Year-Old Boy

2056

   ‘Once he suddenly said:
"Can you remember when Hanna came? She lay beside Mummy in
bed, so nice and good." (His praise rang suspiciously
hollow.)

   ‘And then as regards
downstairs, outside the house. There is again great progress to be
reported. Even drays cause him less alarm. Once he called out,
almost with joy: "Here comes a horse with something black on
its mouth!" And I was at last able to establish the fact that
it was a horse with a leather muzzle. But Hans was not in the least
afraid of this horse.

   ‘Once he knocked on the
pavement with his stick and said: "I say, is there a man
underneath? - some one buried? - or is that only in the
cemetery?" So he is occupied not only with the riddle of life
but with the riddle of death.

   ‘When we got indoors again
I saw a box standing in the front hall, and Hans said: "Hanna
travelled with us to Gmunden in a box like that. Whenever we
travelled to Gmunden she travelled with us in the box. You
don’t believe me again? Really, Daddy. Do believe me. We got
a big box and it was full of babies; they sat in the bath." (A
small bath had been packed inside the box.) "I put them in it.
Really and truly. I can remember quite well."¹

   ‘
I
: "What can
you remember?"

   ‘
Hans
: "That
Hanna travelled in the box; because I haven’t forgotten about
it. My word of honour!"

   ‘
I
: "But last
year Hanna travelled with us in the railway carriage."

   ‘
Hans
: "
But
before that she always travelled with us in the box
."

  
¹
Hans was now going off into a phantasy. As
we can see, a box and a bath have the same meaning for him: they
both represent the space which contains the babies. We must bear in
mind Hans’s repeated assurances on this point.

Analysis Of A Phobia In A Five-Year-Old Boy

2057

   ‘
I
:
"Didn’t Mummy have the box?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes.
Mummy had it."

   ‘
I
:
"Where?"

   ‘
Hans
: "At home
in the attic."

   ‘
I
: "Perhaps
she carried it about with her?"¹

   ‘
Hans
: "No. And
when we travel to Gmunden this time Hanna’ll travel in the
box again."

   ‘
I
: "And how
did she get out of the box, then?"

   ‘
Hans
: "She was
taken out."

   ‘
I
: "By
Mummy?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Mummy
and me. Then we got into the carriage, and Hanna rode on the horse,
and the coachman said ‘Gee-up’. The coachman sat up in
front. Were you there too? Mummy knows all about it. Mummy
doesn’t know; she’s forgotten about it already, but
don’t tell her anything!"

   ‘I made him repeat the
whole of this.

   ‘
Hans
: "Then
Hanna got out."

   ‘
I
: "Why, she
couldn’t walk at all then."

   ‘
Hans
: "Well
then, we lifted her down."

   ‘
I
: "But how
could she have sat on the horse? She couldn’t sit up at all
last year."

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh yes,
she sat up all right, and called out ‘Gee-up’, and
whipped with her whip - ‘Gee-up! Gee-up!’ - the whip I
used to have. The horse hadn’t any stirrups, but Hanna rode
it. I’m not joking, you know, Daddy."'

   What can be the meaning of the
boy’s obstinate persistence in all this nonsense? Oh no, it
was no nonsense: it was parody, it was Hans’s revenge upon
his father. It was as much as to say: ‘
If you really
expect me to believe that the stork brought Hanna in October, when
even in the summer, while we were travelling to Gmunden, I’d
noticed how big Mother’s stomach was, - then I expect you to
believe my lies
.’ What can be the meaning of the
assertion that even the summer before the last Hanna had travelled
with them to Gmunden ‘in the box’, except that he knew
about his mother’s pregnancy? His holding out the prospect of
a repetition of this journey in the box in each successive year
exemplifies a common way in which unconscious thoughts from the
past emerge into consciousness; or it may have special reasons and
express his dread of seeing a similar pregnancy repeated on their
next summer holiday. We now see, moreover, what the circumstances
were that had made him take a dislike to the journey to Gmunden, as
his second phantasy had indicated.

  
¹
The box was of course the womb.
(Hans’s father was trying to let him know that he understood
this.) And the same is true of the caskets in which so many of the
heroes of mythology were exposed, from the time of King Sargon of
Agade onwards. - [
Added
1923:] Cf. Rank’s study,
Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden
, 1909.

Analysis Of A Phobia In A Five-Year-Old Boy

2058

   ‘Later on, I asked him how
Hanna had actually come into his mother’s bed after she was
born.’

   This gave Hans a chance of
letting himself go and fairly ‘stuffing’ his
father.

   ‘
Hans
: "Hanna
just came. Frau Kraus" (the midwife) "put her in the bed.
She couldn’t walk, of course. But the stork carried her in
his beak. Of course she couldn’t walk." (He went on
without a pause.) "The stork came up the stairs up to the
landing, and then he knocked and everybody was asleep, and he had
the right key and unlocked the door and put Hanna in
your
¹ bed, and Mummy was asleep - no, the stork put her
in
her
bed. It was the middle of the night, and then the
stork put her in the bed very quietly, he didn’t trample
about at all, and then he took his hat and went away again. No, he
hadn’t got a hat."

   ‘
I
: "Who took
his hat? The doctor, perhaps?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Then
the stork went away; he went home, and then he rang at the door,
and every one in the house stopped sleeping. But don’t tell
this to Mummy or Tini" (the cook). "It’s a
secret."

   ‘
I
: "Are you
fond of Hanna?"

  
¹
Ironical, of course. Like his subsequent
request that none of the secret should be betrayed to his
mother.

Analysis Of A Phobia In A Five-Year-Old Boy

2059

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh yes,
very fond."

   ‘
I
: "Would you
rather that Hanna weren’t alive or that she were?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"I’d rather she weren’t alive."