Freud - Complete Works (356 page)

   ‘
I
: "And did he
shut the door again?"

   ‘
Hans
: "No, a
maid shut it. She was up already, you see, and opened the door for
him and shut it."

   ‘
I
: "Where does
the stork live!"

   ‘
Hans
: "Where?
In the box where he keeps the little girls. At Schönbrunn,
perhaps."

   ‘
I
: "I’ve
never seen a box at Schönbrunn."

   ‘
Hans
: "It must
be farther off, then. -Do you know how the stork opens the box? He
takes his beak - the box has got a key, too - he takes his beak,
lifts up one’ ‘ (i.e. one-half of the beak) "and
unlocks it like this." (He demonstrated the process on the
lock of the writing-table.) "There’s a handle on it
too."

   ‘
I
:
"Isn’t a little girl like that too heavy for
him?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh
no."

   ‘
I
: "I say,
doesn’t a bus look like a stork-box?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes,"

   ‘
I
: "And a
furniture-waggon?"

   ‘
Hans
: "And a
scallywaggon" ("scallywag" - a term of abuse for
naughty children) "too."

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

2066

   ‘April 17th. Yesterday Hans
carried out his long-premeditated scheme of going across into the
courtyard opposite. He would not do it to-day, as there was a cart
standing at the loading dock exactly opposite the entrance gates.
"When a cart stands there," he said to me,
"I’m afraid I shall tease the horses and they’ll
fall down and make a row with their feet."

   ‘
I
: "How does
one tease horses!"

   ‘
Hans
: "When
you’re cross with them you tease them, and when you shout
‘Gee-up’."¹

   ‘
I
: "Have you
ever teased horses?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes,
quite often. I’m
afraid
I shall do it, but I
don’t
really
."

   ‘
I
: "Did you
ever tease horses at Gmunden?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"No."

   ‘
I
: "But you
like teasing them?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh yes,
very much."

   ‘
I
: "Would you
like to whip them?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "Would you
like to beat the horses as Mummy beats Hanna? You like that too,
you know."

   ‘
Hans
: "It
doesn’t do the horses any harm when they’re
beaten." (I said this to him once to mitigate his fear of
seeing horses whipped.) "Once I really did it. Once I had the
whip, and whipped the horse, and it fell down and made a row with
its feet."

   ‘
I
:
"When?"

   ‘
Hans
: "At
Gmunden."

   ‘
I
: "A real
horse? Harnessed to a cart?"

   ‘
Hans
: "It
wasn’t in the cart."

  
¹
‘Hans has often been very much
terrified when drivers beat their horses and shout
"Gee-up".’

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

2067

   ‘
I
: "Where was
it, then?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I just
held it so that it shouldn’t run away." (Of course, all
this sounded most improbable.)

   ‘
I
: "Where was
that?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Near
the trough."

   ‘
I
: "Who let
you? Had the coachman left the horse standing there?"

   ‘
Hans
: "It was
just a horse from the stables."

   ‘
I
: "How did it
get to the trough?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I took
it there."

   ‘
I
: "Where
from? Out of the stables?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I took
it out because I wanted to beat it."

   ‘
I
: "Was there
no one in the stables?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh yes,
Loisl." (The coachman at Gmunden.)

   ‘
I
: "Did he let
you?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I
talked nicely to him, and he said I might do it."

   ‘
I
: "What did
you say to him?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Could I
take the horse and whip it and shout at it. And he said
‘Yes’."

   ‘
I
: "Did you
whip it a lot?"

   ‘
Hans
: "
What
I’ve told you isn’t the least true
."

   ‘
I
: "How much
of it’s true?"

   ‘
Hans
: "None of
it’s true; I only told it you for fun."

   ‘
I
: "You never
took a horse out of the stables?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh
no."

   ‘
I
: "But you
wanted to."

   ‘
Hans
: "Oh yes,
wanted to. I’ve thought it to myself."

   ‘
I
: "At
Gmunden?"

   ‘
Hans
: "No,
only here. I thought it in the morning when I was quite undressed;
no, in the morning in bed."

   ‘
I
: "Why did
you never tell me about it?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I
didn’t think of it."

   ‘
I
: "You
thought it to yourself because you saw it in the street."

   ‘
Hans
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "Which
would you really like to beat? Mummy, Hanna, or me?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"Mummy."

   ‘
I
:
"Why?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I
should just like to beat her."

   ‘
I
: "When did
you ever see any one beating their Mummy?"

   ‘
Hans
:
"I’ve never seen any one do it, never in all my
life."

   ‘
I
: "And yet
you’d just like to do it. How would you like to set about
it?"

   ‘
Hans
: "With a
carpet-beater." (His mother often threatens to beat him with
the carpet-beater.)

   ‘I was obliged to break off
the conversation for to-day.

   ‘In the street Hans
explained to me that buses, furniture vans, and coal-carts were
stork-box carts.’

   That is to say, pregnant women.
Hans’s access of sadism immediately before cannot be
unconnected with the present theme.

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

2068

   ‘April 21st. This morning
Hans said that he had thought as follows: "There was a train
at Lainz and I travelled with my Lainz Grandmummy to the
Hauptzollamt station. You hadn’t got down from the bridge
yet, and the second train was already at St. Veit. When you came
down, the train was there already, and we got in."

   ‘(Hans was at Lainz
yesterday. In order to get on to the departure platform one has to
cross a bridge. From the platform one can see along the line as far
as St. Veit station. The whole thing is a trifle obscure.
Hans’s original thought had no doubt been that he had gone
off by the first train, which I had missed, and that then a second
train had come in from Unter St. Veit and that I had gone after him
in it. But he had distorted a part of this runaway phantasy, so
that he said finally: "Both of us only got away by the second
train."

   ‘This phantasy is related
to the last one, which was not interpreted, and according to which
we took too long to put on our clothes in the station at Gmunden,
so that the train carried us on.)

   ‘Afternoon, in front of the
house. Hans suddenly ran indoors as a carriage with two horses came
along. I could see nothing unusual about it, and asked him what was
wrong. "The horses are so proud," he said, "that
I’m afraid they’ll fall down." (The coachman was
reining the horses in tight, so that they were trotting with short
steps and holding their heads high. In fact their action
was
"proud".)

   ‘I asked him who it really
was that was so proud.

   ‘
He
: "You are,
when I come into bed with Mummy."

   ‘
I
: "So you
want me to fall down?"

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes.
You’ve got to be naked" (meaning "bare foot",
as Fritzl had been) "and knock up against a stone and bleed,
and then I’II be able to be alone with Mummy for a little bit
at all events. When you come up into our flat I’II be able to
run away quick so that you don’t see."

   ‘
I
: "Can you
remember who it was that knocked up against the stone?"

   ‘
He
: "Yes,
Fritzl."

   ‘
I
: "When
Fritzl fell down, what did you think?"¹

   ‘
He
: "That
you
should hit the stone and tumble down."

   ‘
I
: "So
you’d like to go to Mummy?"

   ‘
He
:
"Yes."

   ‘
I
: "What do I
really scold you for?"

   ‘
He
: "I
don’t know." (!!)

   ‘
I
:
"Why?"

   ‘
He
: "Because
you’re cross."

   ‘
I
: "But
that’s not true."

   ‘
Hans
: "Yes, it
is
true. You’re cross. I know you are. It must be
true."

  
¹
So that in fact Fritzl
did
fall down
- which he at one time denied.

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

2069

   ‘Evidently, therefore, my
explanation that only
little
boys come into bed with their
Mummies and that
big
ones sleep in their own beds had not
impressed him very much.

   ‘I suspect that his desire
to "tease" the horse, i.e. to beat it and shout at it,
does not apply to his mother, as he pretended, but to me. No doubt
he only put her forward because he was unwilling to admit the
alternative to me. For the last few days he has been particularly
affectionate to me.’

   Speaking with the air of
superiority which is so easily acquired after the event, we may
correct Hans’s father, and explain that the boy’s wish
to ‘tease’ the horse had two constituents; it was
compounded of an obscure sadistic desire for his mother and of a
clear impulse for revenge against his father. The latter could not
be reproduced until the former’s turn had come to emerge in
connection with the pregnancy complex. In the process of the
formation of a phobia from the unconscious thoughts underlying it,
condensation takes place; and for that reason the course of the
analysis can never follow that of the development of the
neurosis.

   ‘April 22nd. This morning
Hans again thought something to himself: "A street-boy was
riding on a truck, and the guard came and undressed the boy quite
naked and made him stand there till next morning, and in the
morning the boy gave the guard 50,000 florins so that he could go
on riding on the truck."

   ‘(The Nordbahn runs past
opposite our house. In a siding there stood a trolley on which Hans
once saw a street-boy riding. He wanted to do so too; but I told
him it was not allowed, and that if he did the guard would be after
him. A second element in this phantasy is Hans’s repressed
wish to be naked.)'

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

2070

   It has been noticeable for some
time that Hans’s imagination was being coloured by images
derived from traffic, and was advancing systematically from horses,
which draw vehicles, to railways. In the same way a railway-phobia
eventually becomes associated with every street-phobia.

   ‘At lunch-time I was told
that Hans
had been playing all the morning with an india-rubber
doll which he called Grete. He had pushed a small penknife in
through the opening to which the little tin squeaker had originally
been attached, and had then torn the doll’s legs apart so as
to let the knife drop out. He had said to the nurse-maid, pointing
between the doll’s legs: "Look, there’s its
widdler!"

   ‘
I
: "What was
it you were playing at with your doll to-day?"

   ‘
Hans
: "I tore
its legs apart. Do you know why? Because there was a knife inside
it belonging to Mummy. I put it in at the place where the button
squeaks, and then I tore apart its legs and it came out
there."

   ‘
I
: "Why did
you tear its legs apart? So that you could see its
widdler?"

   ‘
He
: "Its
widdler was there before; I could have seen it anyhow."

   ‘
I
: "What did
you put the knife in for?"

   ‘
He
: "I
don’t know."

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

   ‘He brought it to me.

   ‘
I
: "Did you
think it was a baby, perhaps?"

   ‘
He
: "No, I
didn’t think anything at all; but I believe the stork got a
baby once - or some one."

   ‘
I
:
"When?"

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

2071

   ‘
He
: "Once. I
heard so - or didn’t I hear it at all? - or did I say it
wrong?"

   ‘
I
: "What does
‘say it wrong’ mean?"

   ‘
He
: "That
it’s not true."

   ‘
I
: "Everything
one says is a bit true."

   ‘
He
: "Well,
yes, a little bit."

   ‘
I
(after changing
the subject): "How do you think chickens are born?"