Freud - Complete Works (358 page)

   ‘
Hans
: "But
Mummy told me if
she
didn’t want it no more’d
grow, and you say if
God
doesn’t want it."

   ‘So I told him it was as I
had said, upon which he observed: "You were there, though,
weren’t you? You know better, for certain." He then
proceeded to cross-question his mother, and she reconciled the two
statements by declaring that if she didn’t want it God
didn’t want it either.¹

  
¹
Ce que femme veut Dieu veut
. But
Hans, with his usual acumen, had once more put his finger upon a
most serious problem.

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

2078

   ‘
I
: "It seems
to me that, all the same, you do wish Mummy would have a
baby."

   ‘
Hans
: "But I
don’t want it to happen."

   ‘
I
: "But you
wish for it?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh yes,
wish
."

   ‘
I
: "Do you
know why you wish for it? It’s because you’d like to be
Daddy."

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes. . . . How does it work?"

   ‘
I
: "How does
what work?"

   ‘
Hans
: "You say
Daddies don’t have babies; so how does it work, my wanting to
be Daddy?"

   ‘
I
:
"You’d like to be Daddy and married to Mummy;
you’d like to be as big as me and have a moustache; and
you’d like Mummy to have a baby."

   ‘
Hans
: "And,
Daddy, when I’m married I’II only have one if I want
to, when I’m married to Mummy, and if I don’t want a
baby, God won’t want it either, when I’m
married."

   ‘
I
: "Would you
like to be married to Mummy?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh
yes."'

   It is easy to see that
Hans’s enjoyment of his phantasy was interfered with by his
uncertainty as to the part played by fathers and by his doubts as
to whether the begetting of children would be under his
control.

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

2079

   ‘On the evening of the same
day, as Hans was being put to bed, he said to me: "I say,
d’you know what I’m going to do now? Now I’m
going to talk to Grete till ten o’clock; she’s in bed
with me. My children are always in bed with me. Can you tell me why
that is?" -As he was very sleepy already, I promised him that
we should write it down next day, and he went to sleep.

   ‘I have already noticed in
earlier records that since Hans’s return from Gmunden he has
constantly been having phantasies about "his children",
has carried on conversations with them, and so on.¹

   ‘So on April 26th I asked
him why he was always thinking of his children.

   ‘
Hans
: "Why?
Because I should so like to have children; but I don’t
ever want it; I shouldn’t like to have
them
."²

   ‘
I
: "Have you
always imagined that Berta and Olga and the rest were your
children?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes.
Franzl, and Fritzl, and Paul too" (his playmates at Lainz),
"and Lodi." This is an invented girl’s name, that
of his favourite child, whom he speaks of most often - I may here
emphasize the fact that the figure of Lodi is not an invention of
the last few days, but existed before the date of his receiving the
latest piece of enlightenment (April 24th).

   ‘
I
: "Who is
Lodi? Is she at Gmunden?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"No."

   ‘
I
: "Is there a
Lodi?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes, I
know her."

   ‘
I
: "Who is
she, then?"

   ‘
Hans
: "The one
I’ve got here."

   ‘
I
: "What does
she look like?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Look
like? Black eyes, black hair. . . . I met her once with
Mariedl" (at Gmunden) "as I was going into the
town."

  
¹
There is no necessity on this account to
assume in Hans the presence of a feminine strain of desire for
having children. It was with his mother that Hans had had his most
blissful experience as a child, and he was now repeating them, and
himself playing the active part, which was thus necessarily that of
mother.

  
²
This startling contradiction was one
between phantasy and reality, between wishing and having. Hans knew
that in reality he was a child and that the other children would
only be in his way; but in phantasy he was a mother and wanted
children with whom he could repeat the endearments that he had
himself experienced.

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

2080

   ‘When I went into the
matter it turned out that this was an invention.¹

   ‘
I
: "So you
thought you were their Mummy?"

   ‘
Hans
: "And
really I
was
their Mummy."

   ‘
I
: "What did
you do with your children?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I had
them to sleep with me, the girls and the boys."

   ‘
I
: "Every
day?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Why, of
course."

   ‘
I
: "Did you
talk to them?"

   ‘
Hans
: "When I
couldn’t get all the children into the bed, I put some of the
children on the sofa, and some in the pram, and if there were still
some left over I took them up to the attic and put them in the box,
and if there were any more I put them in the other box."

   ‘
I
: "So the
stork-baby-boxes were in the attic?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "When did
you get your children? Was Hanna alive already?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes,
she had been a long time."

   ‘
I
: "But who
did you think you’d got the children from?"

   ‘
Hans: "Why from
me."
²

   ‘
I
: "But at
that time you hadn’t any idea that children came from some
one."

   ‘
Hans
: "I
thought the stork had brought them." (Clearly a lie and an
evasion.)³

  
¹
It is possible, however, that Hans had
exalted into his ideal some one whom he had met casually at
Gmunden. The colour of this ideal’s eyes and hair, by the
way, was copied from his mother.

  
²
Hans could not help answering from the
auto-erotic point of view.

  
³
They were the children of his phantasy,
that is to say, of his masturbation.

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

2081

   ‘
I
: "You had
Grete in bed with you yesterday, but you know quite well that boys
can’t have children."

   ‘
Hans
: "Well,
yes. But I believe they can, all the same."

   ‘
I
: "How did
you hit upon the name Lodi? No girl’s called that. Lotti,
perhaps?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh no,
Lodi. I don’t know; but it’s a beautiful name, all the
same."

   ‘
I
(jokingly):
"Perhaps you mean a Schokolodi?"¹

   ‘
Hans
(promptly):
"No, a Saffalodi,² . . . because I like eating sausages
so much, and salami too."

   ‘
I
: "I say,
doesn’t a Saffalodi look like a lumf"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "Well, what
does a lumf look like?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Black.
You know" (pointing at my eyebrows and moustache), "like
this and like this."

   ‘
I
: "And what
else? Round like a Saffaladi?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "When you
sat on the chamber and a lumf came, did you think to yourself you
were having a baby?"

   ‘
Hans
(laughing):
"Yes. Even at --- Street, and here as well."

   ‘
I
: "You know
when the bus-horses fell down? The bus looked like a baby-box, and
when the black horse fell down it was just like . . ."

   ‘
Hans
(taking me
up): ". . . like having a baby."

   ‘
I
: "And what
did you think when it made a row with its feet?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh,
when I don’t want to sit on the chamber and would rather
play, then I make a row like this with my feet." (He stamped
his feet.)

   ‘This was why he was so
much interested in the question whether people
liked
or
did not like
having children.

  
¹
[’
Schokolade
’ is the
German for ‘chocolate’.]

  
²
‘"Saffaladi" means
"
Zervelatwurst
"" ["saveloy", a kind
of sausage]. My wife is fond of relating how her aunt always calls
it "Soffilodi". Hans may have heard
this.’

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

2082

   ‘All day long to-day Hans
has been playing at loading and unloading packing-cases; he said he
wished he could have a toy waggon and boxes of that kind to play
with. What used most to interest him in the courtyard of the
Customs House opposite was the loading and unloading of the carts.
And he used to be frightened most when a cart had been loaded up
and was on the point of driving off. "The horses’ll fall
down,"¹ he used to say. He used to call the doors of the
Head Customs House shed "holes" (e.g. the first hole,
second hole, third hole, etc.). But now, instead of
"hole", he says "behind-hole".

   ‘The anxiety has almost
completely disappeared, except that he likes to remain in the
neighbourhood of the house, so as to have a line of retreat in case
he is frightened. But he never takes flight into the house now, but
stops in the street all the time. As we know, his illness began
with his turning back in tears while he was out for a walk; and
when he was obliged to go for a second walk he only went as far as
the Hauptzollamt station on the Stadtbahn, from which our house can
still be seen. At the time of my wife’s confinement he was of
course kept away from her; and his present anxiety, which prevents
him from leaving the neighbourhood of the house, is in reality the
longing for her which he felt then.

   ‘April 30th. Seeing Hans
playing with his imaginary children again, "Hullo," I
said to him, "are your children still alive? You know quite
well a boy can’t have any children."

   ‘
Hans
: "I know.
I was their Mummy before,
now I’m their
Daddy
."

   ‘
I
: "And
who’s the children’s Mummy?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Why,
Mummy, and you’re their
Grandaddy
."

   ‘
I
: "So then
you’d like to be as big as me, and be married to Mummy, and
then you’d like her to have children."

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes,
that’s what I’d like, and then my Lainz
Grandmummy" (my mother) "will be their
Grannie."'

   Things were moving towards a
satisfactory conclusion. The little Oedipus had found a happier
solution than that prescribed by destiny. Instead of putting his
father out of the way, he had granted him the same happiness that
he desired himself: he made him a grandfather and married
him
to his own mother too.

  
¹
Do we not use the word
‘
niederkommen
’ [literally, ‘to come
down’] when a woman is delivered?

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

2083

   ‘On May 1st Hans came to me
at lunch-time and said: "D’you know what? Let’s
write something down for the Professor."

   ‘
I
: "Well, and
what shall it be?"

   ‘
Hans
: "This
morning I was in the W.C. with all my children. First I did lumf
and widdled, and they looked on. Then I put them on the seat and
they widdled and did lumf, and I wiped their behinds with paper.
D’you know why? Because I’d so much like to have
children; then I’d do everything for them - take them to the
W.C., clean their behinds, and do everything one does with
children."'

   After the admission afforded by
this phantasy, it will scarcely be possible to dispute the fact
that in Hans’s mind there was pleasure attached to the
excretory functions.

   ‘In the afternoon he
ventured into the Stadtpark for the first time. As it is the First
of May, no doubt there was less traffic than usual, but still quite
enough to have frightened him up to now. He was very proud of his
achievement, and after tea I was obliged to go with him to the
Stadtpark once again. On the way we met a bus; Hans pointed it out
to me, saying: "Look! a stork-box cart!" If he goes with
me to the Stadtpark again to-morrow, as we have planned, we shall
really be able to regard his illness as cured.

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

2084

   ‘On May 2nd Hans came to me
in the morning. "I say," he said, "I thought
something to-day." At first he had forgotten it; but later on
he related what follows, though with signs of considerable
resistance: "
The plumber came; and first he took away my
behind with a pair of pincers, and then gave me another, and then
the same with my widdler
. He said: ‘Let me see your
behind!’ and I had to turn round, and he took it away; and
then he said: ‘Let me see your widdler!’"'