Freud - Complete Works (355 page)

   ‘
I
:
"Why?"

   ‘
Hans
: "At any
rate she wouldn’t scream so, and I can’t bear her
screaming."

   ‘
I
: "Why, you
scream yourself."

   ‘
Hans
: "But
Hanna screams too."

   ‘
I
: "Why
can’t you bear it?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Because
she screams so loud."

   ‘
I
: "Why, she
doesn’t scream at all."

   ‘
Hans
: "When
she’s whacked on her bare bottom, then she screams."

   ‘
I
: "Have you
ever whacked her?"

   ‘
Hans
: "When
Mummy whacks her on her bottom, then she screams."

   ‘
I
: "And you
don’t like that?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"No. . . . Why? Because she makes such a row
with her screaming."

   ‘
I
: "If
you’d rather she weren’t alive, you can’t be fond
of her at all."

   ‘
Hans
(assenting):
"H’m, well."

   ‘
I
: "That was
why you thought when Mummy was giving her her bath, if only
she’d let go, Hanna would fall into the
water . . ."

   ‘
Hans
(taking me
up): ". . . and die."

   ‘
I
: "And then
you’d be alone with Mummy. A good boy doesn’t wish that
sort of thing, though."

   ‘
Hans
: "
But
he may
THINK
it
."

   ‘
I
: "But that
isn’t good."

   ‘
Hans
: "
If
he thinks it, it
IS
good all the same, because you can write it to the
Professor
."¹

  
¹
Well done, little Hans! I could wish for no
better understanding of psycho-analysis from any
grown-up.

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

2060

   ‘Later on I said to him:
"You know, when Hanna gets bigger and can talk, you’ll
be fonder of her."

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh no.
I
am
fond of her. In the autumn, when she’s big, I
shall go with her to the Stadtpark quite alone, and explain
everything to her."

   ‘As I was beginning to give
him some further enlightenment, he interrupted me, probably with
the intention of explaining to me that it was not so wicked of him
to wish that Hanna was dead.

   ‘
Hans
: "You
know, all the same, she’d been alive a long time even before
she was here. When she was with the stork she was alive
too."

   ‘
I
: "No.
Perhaps she wasn’t with the stork after all."

   ‘
Hans
: "Who
brought her, then? The stork had got her."

   ‘
I
: "Where did
he bring her from, then?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh -
from him."

   ‘
I
: "Where had
he got her, then?"

   ‘
Hans
: "In the
box; in the
stork-box
."

   ‘
I
: "Well, and
what does the box look like?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Red.
Painted red." (Blood?)

   ‘
I
: "Who told
you that?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Mummy . . . I thought it to
myself . . . it’s in the book."

   ‘
I
: "In what
book?"

   ‘
Hans
: "In the
picture-book." (I made him fetch his first picture-book. In it
was a picture of a stork’s nest with storks, on a red
chimney. This was the box. Curiously enough, on the same page there
was also a picture of a horse being shod. Hans had transferred the
babies into the box, as they were not to be seen in the nest.)

   ‘
I
: "And what
did the stork do with her?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Then
the stork brought Hanna here. In his beak. You know, the stork
that’s at Schönbrunn, and that bit the umbrella."
(A reminiscence of an episode at Schönbrunn.)

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

2061

   ‘
I
: "Did you
see how the stork brought Hanna?"

   ‘
Hans
: ‘Why, I
was still asleep, you know. A stork can never bring a little girl
or a little boy in the morning."

   ‘
I
:
"Why?"

   ‘
Hans
: "He
can’t. A stork can’t do it. Do you know why: So that
people shan’t see. And then, all at once, in the morning,
there’s a little girl there."¹

   ‘
I
: "But, all
the same, you were curious at the time to know how the stork did
it?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh
yes."

   ‘
I
: "What did
Hanna look like when she came?"

   ‘
Hans
(hypocritically): "All white and lovely. So pretty"

   ‘
I
: "But when
you saw her the first time you didn’t like her."

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh, I
did; very much!"

   ‘
I
: "You were
surprised that she was so small, though."

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "How small
was she?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Like a
baby stork."

   ‘
I
: "Like what
else? Like a lumf, perhaps?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh no.
A lumf’s much bigger . . . a bit smaller than
Hanna, really."'

   I had predicted to his father
that it would be possible to trace back Hans’s phobia to
thoughts and wishes occasioned by the birth of his baby sister. But
I had omitted to point out that according to the sexual theory of
children a baby is a ‘lumf’, so that Hans’s path
would lie through the excremental complex. It was owing to this
neglect on my part that the progress of the case became temporarily
obscured. Now that the matter had been cleared up, Hans’s
father attempted to examine the boy a second time upon this
important point.

  
¹
There is no need to find fault with
Hans’s inconsistencies. In the previous conversation his
disbelief in the stork had emerged from his unconscious and had
been coupled with the exasperation he felt against his father for
making so many mysteries. But he had now become calmer and was
answering his father’s questions with official thoughts in
which he had worked out glosses upon the many difficulties involved
in the stork hypothesis.

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

2062

   The next day, ‘I got Hans
to repeat what he had told me yesterday. He said: "Hanna
travelled to Gmunden in the big box, and Mummy travelled in the
railway carriage, and Hanna travelled in the luggage train with the
box; and then when we got to Gmunden Mummy and I lifted Hanna out
and put her on the horse. The coachman sat up in front, and Hanna
had the old whip" (the whip he had last year) "and
whipped the horse and kept on saying ‘Gee-up’, and it
was such fun, and the coachman whipped too. -The coachman
didn’t whip at all, because Hanna had the whip. -The coachman
had the reins - Hanna had the reins too." (On each occasion we
drove in a carriage from the station to the house. Hans was here
trying to reconcile fact and fancy.) "At Gmunden we lifted
Hanna down from the horse, and she walked up the steps by
herself." (Last year, when Hanna was at Gmunden, she was eight
months old. The year before that - and Hans’s phantasy
evidently related to that time his mother had been five months gone
with child when we arrived at Gmunden.)

   ‘
I
: "Last year
Hanna was there."

   ‘
Hans
: "Last
year she drove in the carriage; but the year before that, when she
was living with us . . ."

   ‘
I
: "Was she
with us already then?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes.
You were always there; you used always to go in the boat with me,
and Anna was our servant."

   ‘
I
: "But that
wasn’t last year. Hanna wasn’t alive then."

   ‘
Hans
: "
Yes,
she was alive then
. Even while she was still travelling in the
box she could run about and she could say ‘Anna’."
(She has only been able to do so for the last four months.)

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

2063

   ‘
I
: "But she
wasn’t with us at all then."

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh yes,
she was; she was with the stork."

   ‘
I
: "How old is
she, then?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"She’ll be two years old in the autumn. Hanna
was
there, you know she was."

   ‘
I
: "And when
was she with the stork in the stork-box?"

   ‘
Hans
: "A long
time before she travelled in the box, a very long time."

   ‘
I
: "How long
has Hanna been able to walk, then? When she was at Gmunden she
couldn’t walk yet."

   ‘
Hans
: "Not
last year; but other times she could."

   ‘
I
: "But
Hanna’s only been at Gmunden once."

   ‘
Hans
: "No.
She’s been twice. Yes, that’s it. I can remember quite
well. Ask Mummy, she’ll tell you soon enough."

   ‘
I
: "It’s
not true, all the same."

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes, it
is
true.
When she was at Gmunden the first time she could
walk and ride, and later on she had to be carried
. -No. It was
only later on that she rode, and last year she had to be
carried."

   ‘
I
: "But
it’s only quite a short time that she’s been walking.
At Gmunden she couldn’t walk."

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes.
Just you write it down. I can remember quite well. -Why are you
laughing?"

   ‘
I
: "Because
you’re a fraud; because you know quite well that
Hanna’s only been at Gmunden once."

   ‘
Hans
: "No,
that isn’t true. The first time she rode on the
horse . . . and the second
time . . ." (He showed signs of evident
uncertainty.)

   ‘
I
: "Perhaps
the horse was Mummy?"

   ‘
Hans
: "No, a
real horse in a fly."

   ‘
I
: "But we
used always to have a carriage with two horses."

   ‘
Hans
: "Well,
then, it was a carriage and pair."

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

2064

   ‘
I
: "What did
Hanna eat inside the box?"

   ‘
Hans
: "They
put in bread-and-butter for her, and herring, and radishes"
(the sort of thing we used to have for supper at Gmunden),
"and as Hanna went along she buttered her bread-and-butter and
ate fifty meals."

   ‘
I
:
"Didn’t Hanna scream?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"No."

   ‘
I
: "What did
she do, then?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Sat
quite still inside."

   ‘
I
:
"Didn’t she push about?"

   ‘
Hans
: "No, she
kept on eating all the time and didn’t stir once. She drank
up two big mugs of coffee - by the morning it was all gone, and she
left the bits behind in the box, the leaves of the two radishes and
a knife for cutting the radishes. She gobbled everything up like a
hare: one minute and it was all finished. It
was
a joke.
Hanna and I really travelled together in the box; I slept the whole
night in the box." (We did in fact, two years ago, make the
journey to Gmunden by night.) "And Mummy travelled in the
railway carriage. And we kept on eating all the time when we were
driving in the carriage, too; it
was
jolly. - She
didn’t ride on a horse at all . . ." (he
now became undecided, for he knew that we had driven with two
horses) " . . . she sat in the carriage. Yes,
that’s how it was, but Hanna and I drove quite by
ourselves . . . Mummy rode on the horse, and
Karoline" (our maid last year) "on the
other . . . I say, what I’m telling you
isn’t a bit true."

   ‘
I
: "What
isn’t true?"

   ‘
Hans
: "None of
it is. I say, let’s put Hanna and me in the box¹ and
I’II widdle into the box. I’II just widdle into my
knickers; I don’t care a bit; there’s nothing at all
shameful in it. I say, that isn’t a joke, you know; but
it’s great fun, though."

  
¹
‘The box standing in the front hall
which we had taken to Gmunden as luggage.’

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

2065

   ‘Then he told me the story
of how the stork came - the same story as yesterday, except that he
left out the part about the stork taking his hat when he went
away.

   ‘
I
: "Where did
the stork keep his latch-key?"

   ‘
Hans
: "In his
pocket."

   ‘
I
: "And
where’s the stork’s pocket?"

   ‘
Hans
: "In his
beak."

   ‘
I
: "It’s
in his beak! I’ve never seen a stork yet with a key in his
beak."

   ‘
Hans
; "How
else could he have got in? How did the stork come in at the door,
then? No, it isn’t true; I just made a mistake. The stork
rang at the front door and some one let him in."

   ‘
I
: "And how
did he ring?"

   ‘
Hans
: "He rang
the bell."

   ‘
I
: "How did he
do that?"

   ‘
Hans
: "He took
his beak and pressed on it with his beak."