THE DREAM ABOUT ROME
Before giving the dream Freud states: “I note the fact that although the wish which excites the dream is a contemporary wish, it is nevertheless greatly reinforced by memories of childhood. I refer to a series of dreams which are based on the longing to go to Rome. For a long time to come I shall probably have to satisfy this longing by means of dreams” . Two dreams about Rome are briefly mentioned but not told. In regard to the second one it is stated: “The motive to see the promised land afar is he re easily recognizable” .
The first dream about Rome: “I am at last in Rome as the dream tells me. To my disappointment the scenery is anything but urban: it consists of a little stream of dark water on one side of which are black rocks, while on the other are meadows with large white flowers. I notice a certain Herr Zucker (with whom I am superficially acquainted), and resolve to ask him to show me the way into the city” .
Freud’s Interpretation. His associations as dreamer: “It is obvious that I am trying in vain to see in my dream a city which I have never seen in my waking life” . The scenery reminds him of Ravenna where he saw beautiful water-lilies in black water. Furt her the narcissi of Aussee. The dark rock recalls the valley of the Tepe at Karlsbad. The name Karlsbad reminds him of several Jewish anecdotes. One concerns a Jew who because he has no railroad ticket is put off the train repeatedly and who, upon being asked at one of the stations of his martyrdom where he is going, replies: “If my constitution holds out-to Karlsbad” . The memory of Karlsbad explains the peculiar circumstance that “I ask Mr. Zucker to show me the way” . We usually send our patients with the constitutional disease, diabetes, to Karlsbad” (Zucker-sugar). “Asking the way” is a direct allusion to Rome, for we know “all roads lead to Rome” . “The occasion for this dream was the proposal of my Berlin friend that we should meet in Prague at Easter. A further association with sugar and diabetes might be found in the matters which I had to discuss with him.”
“During my last Italian journey I considered the plan of traveling in the following year to Naples via Rome” . “I myself had walked in Hannibal’s footsteps; as little as he was I destined to see Rome, and he too had gone to Campania when all were expecting him in Rome. Hannibal, with whom I had achieved this point of similarity, had been my favorite hero during my years at the ‘gymnasium’ ; like so many boys of that age, I bestowed my sympathies in the Punic war not on the Romans, but on the Carthaginians” .
Here follows the story which I have mentioned of how he suffered from anti-Semitism at school and that “Hannibal and Rome symbolized, in my youthful eyes, the contrast between the tenacity of Judaism and the organization of the Catholic Church. The significance for our emotional life which the anti-semitic movement has since assumed helped to fix the thoughts and impressions of those earlier days. Thus the desire to go to Rome has in my dream-life become the mask and symbol for a number of warmly cherished wishes, for whose realization one had to work with the tenacity and single-mindedness of the Punic soldier, though their fulfillment at times seemed as remote as Hannibal’s life-long wish to enter Rome. And now, for the first time, I happened upon the youthful experience which even to-day still expresses its power in all these emotions and dreams” .
He then recites the incident of his father and the Christian mentioned above. He thinks of Hamilcar who makes his son Hannibal swear before the household altar that he will take vengeance on the Romans.
This “enthusiasm for the Carthaginian general “brings up another memory from his still earlier childhood. He was playing with wooden soldiers and his favorite marshal among the marshals of Napoleon was Massena (“as a Jew Menasse” ). That much we have learned from Freud about his Roman dreams.
My interpretation. It is Rome, not however the scenery of a town but “a small stream with black water” . Thus Rome is not the city but the Roman-Catholic Church which Freud has also mentioned in associations, to use a non-sequitur. Rome is for him the symbol “of the cherished wishes, for whose realization one would like to work with the tenacity of the Punic soldier” .
“Dark water” is the water for baptism. “On one side of the dark water, black rock” -Judaism, the sad life of the children of the Jewish people, “on the other, meadows with large white flowers” -Christianity, the happy life of those who are not persecuted. It is characteristic that Freud in his associations twice arrived at the word ‘constitution’ .
We shall interpret it in the civic-legal sense. According to the constitution the Jew does not have equal rights. In the anecdote too the Jew is put off the train again and again “because he has no ticket” . Under this constitution he cannot get on. The anecdote deals really with himself. To be a Jew is a “constitutional disease” . This road to Rome would not be Hannibal’s road. For Hannibal Rome was no “promised land” . But it might be for a Mr. Zucker who knows the roads.-Not. to submit, but to gain a victory the Semitic general led his army towards Rome.
But for a Jew the promised land was Jerusalem. The small stream of black water, a border like the Rubicon, signifies temptation and the anguish of the lonely wanderer from that dispersed people of whom he knew that it had stubbornly resisted powerful Rome for a thousand years. Freud’s fate was to be a strange one. He will see Rome. And there he will be fascinated by nothing but one figure, “How often did I climb the steep stairway of the ugly Corso Cavour to the lonely place where stands the deserted church and tried repeatedly to withstand the contemptuous-angry look of Moses; sometimes I slunk away from the twilight of the inner room as if I myself belonged to the mob who can not be faithful to any conviction, who can not wait and will not have confidence, and who cheers when given back the illusions of its idol” (Freud, Michelangelo).
DREAM ABOUT THE WOMAN IN THE KITCHEN AND THE STRANGER
The next dream. “I go into a kitchen in order to ask for some pudding. There three women are standing, one of whom is the hostess; she is rolling something in her hands, as though she were making dumplings. She replies that I must wait until she has finished (not distinctly as a speech). I become impatient, and go away offended. I put on an overcoat; but the first one I try on is too long. I take it off, and am somewhat astonished to find that it is trimmed with fur. A second coat which I put on has a long strip of cloth with a Turkish design sewn into it. A stranger with a long face and short, pointed beard comes up and prevents me from putting it on, declaring that if belongs to him. I now show him that it is covered all over with Turkish embroideries. He asks: ‘How do the Turkish (drawings, strips of cloth . . .) concern you?’ But we soon become quite friendly” .
Freud’s analysis. Recollection of a novel in which the hero becomes psychotic and continually calls the names of the three women who have brought the greatest happiness and the greatest misfortune into his life. One of the names is Pelagie. “I still do no t know what to make of this recollection during the analysis. There now emerge with the three women the three Parcae, who spin the fates of men, and I know that one of the three women, the hostess in the dream, is the mother who gives life and the first nourishment” . . . “One of the Parcae, then, is rubbing the palms of her hands together, as though she were making dumplings. A strange occupation for one of the Fates, and urgently in need of explanation! This explanation is furnished by another and earlier memory of my childhood. When I was six years old, and receiving my first lessons from my mother, I was expected to believe that we are made of dust, and must, therefore return to dust. But this did not please me, and I questioned the doctrine. Thereupon my mother rubbed the palms of her hands together-just as in making dumplings, except that there was no dough between them-and showed me the blackish scales of epidermis which were thus rubbed off, as a proof that it is of dust that we are made. My astonishment was boundless at this demonstration ad oculos, and I acquiesced in the idea which I was later to hear expressed in the words: ‘Thou owest nature a death’ .”
Further associations of Freud: Knödl (dumplings) reminds him of the professor with whom he studied histology (epidermis) and whose writings a man named Knodl plagiarized. Further a whole chain of similar sounds: Pelagie, Plagiarism, Plagiostomi, fish, fish -bladder; the latter as also the overcoat in the dream obviously refer “to an appliance appertaining to the technique of sex” . “A very forced and irrational connection” , Freud says about this, “but nevertheless one which I could not have established in waking life if it had not been established by the dream-work” . “The name of a professor Fleischl again sounds like something edible and this in turn recalls the Latin pharmacopeia (kitchen) and cocaine which numbs the sensation of hunger” .
The train of thought leads to memories which to divulge would entail too great a personal sacrifice. He only “ takes up one .of the threads “. “ The stranger with the long face and pointed beard . . . has the features of a tradesman of Spalato” . “His name was Popovic, a suspicious name” which was utilized by humorists. The purchase in Spalato reminds him of another purchase at Cattaro where he was all too cautious and missed the opportunity of making an excellent bargain. One of the dream thoughts which hunger suggests to the dreamer is the following: “ One should not miss any thing, take that which one can have, even if a small wrong is involved, one should not pass up any opportunity, for life is so short, death inevitable” .
My interpretation. It is a dream about the death of his mother and his father. Freud correctly recognized his mother in the hostess. She is the mother of a Jewish home. Dumplings are a specifically Jewish dish.
“She replies I should wait until she is finished” . He should wait with his intentions until she is dead. Likewise the same idea of death is in the association brought up by Freud of the mother who rubs the palms of her hands together and who tells him that “everything must return to dust” .
We know that a stranger in a dream is usually the father. Also the name Popovic suggests the association with papa. Likewise the overcoat which is too large (Jews wear long overcoats) is that of the father. He is surprised in the dream “that the coat is trimmed with fur” . Eight pages earlier the story of the father’ s fur cap which was thrown into the mud by a Christian is told in connection with a previous dream. The overcoat is too long, it binders him in walking. The father too (or the memory of the father who died in 1896) “hinders me” . (His father’s coat is put on-a thought of death.) There is no greater shame for Jewish parents than the baptism of their children. They are obliged to mourn for such a son as for a child that died. He tries on the Jewish coat (trimmed with fur, father’s religion) and afterwards a foreign (Turkish) one. Why “Turkish” was chosen for foreign I can not say definitely without the assistance of the necessary associations. But Viennese history considers the Turk especially as the foreigner.
Thus we have again the same problem which he would like to solve in the way stated by him: “One should not miss anything, take that which one can have even if a small wrong is involved; one should not pass up any opportunity for life is so short” .
But the tragedy unfolds. In his mind he sees the work-worn hands of his mother who speaks to the little boy of the mysteries of life and death, the tall, strong, wise father who is being insulted in the street by a Christian scamp. Can one still deal them a blow? No. “We have now become quite friendly” .
