Part 5
64. Mr. S. L. has not worked as bank employee for the past three years or more. Three years ago he began to complain of various nervous ailments and was granted a leave of absence to recover his health. That leave proved his undoing. He did not improve; instead, he became totally unable to work and is now no longer able to return to his duties. His father always maintained that the whole trouble was imaginary, and wanted to hear nothing of a prolongation of the leave. But the man’s suffering became gradually worse. Out of spite for his father’s attitude he at first simulated the aggravation of his trouble and his condition in the end actually grew so much worse that it shattered him to pieces and he lost control over himself. He experienced attacks of dyspnea so severe that he could not talk. The dyspnea occurred in paroxysms. After one year he lost his position with the bank and, reduced to want, he appealed to his well-to-do father for aid. The father denied him any assistance because he did not consider the son unable to work; he thought the son was simulating so as to impose on him. S. L. sued his father for sustenance and won, aided by the testimony of a number of physicians who certified that his case was one of severe neurasthenia, so that his father had to give him a monthly allowance. Father and son broke all personal relations so that the payment was made through an attorney. Thereafter S. L. was inspired by no other thought than revenge on his father. He was very clever in thinking out new legal issues and additional suits against him. Finally he came to the conclusion he was not the rightful son of his father and threatened a law suit which only his love for his mother prevented him from actually starting. She was revolted at the son’s terrible accusation but so strongly under his influence that she did not have the will power to break with him. She met him clandestinely, placing money into his hands. He loved his mother above all else and urged her to leave the father. He put detectives on his father’s trail, hoping to be able to fasten against him the accusation of being untrue to the mother. He always spoke of his father as “the old rascal,” “the old scamp,” “that miserable, quarrelsome rake.” “Should I see him today writhe in agony it would be the best and most pleasant day I ever had.” I had never seen before so bitter a hatred of the father.
He was a confirmed homosexual, hating all women with the exception of his mother, whom he held in divine veneration. The alleged breach of faithfulness which he alleged her to have committed with a person of high position (the well-known family romance of the neurotic) he excused as natural for it would have been a miracle for that noble soul to have remained true to so terrible a man. The father compelled her to coitus with brute force. He was the offspring of such a coercion, etc.... He loved only younger men, even boys, and he was fairly brutal towards them. Occasionally he carried on deeds with older men towards whom he then preserved an attitude of submissiveness and passivity, trying to please them in every way. He permitted pederasty on his person and did not shrink from _fellatio_.
The analysis showed a passionate love of the father, a feeling which on account of its unattainable aspect turned into bitter hatred. He thought the father was partial to the other sons and fled to the mother to whom he often complained about the father’s severity and lack of affection. In his homosexual acts he played actively the rôle of the father, becoming at such times very severe and almost cruel, passively he carried out the act as if he were with the father, being then very submissive, and thus allowing his whole repressed love to outflow as if bent on showing him: _that is how loving I would be with you always if you only were agreeable!_ Cruel phantasies revolving around revenge upon the father as the central theme were confessed under strong resistances. Several times he came near shooting his father. He often fancied himself in situations in which his father depended altogether on his compassion and magnanimity. For instance, he would imagine his father had committed some great fraud. He himself had become a millionaire through an ingenious invention of his own. His father comes begging at his feet and is refused any aid. His favorite reading is books describing cruel punishments, the inquisition tortures, etc. The well-known work of _Octave Mirbeau_, “_Le jardin des supplices_,” threw him into ecstasy.
The other roots of this subject’s homosexuality I do not dwell upon because I am concerned here only with the rôle of the father....
The next case shows a very similar situation:
65. Mr. G. Z. for some years has had intimate relations with an elderly man, an artist, whose studio is the meeting place of a number of young men exclusively. He is not a musician like the others, but a jurist, and had met incidentally Mr. X, his fatherly friend, as he calls the man. Before that time he had been entirely abstinent. He became Mr. X’s friend only at the age of 21. The friendship was wholly platonic until they undertook a journey together. At Salzburg they occupied together the same room, because the hotel was filled. They carried on intercourse (_coitus inter femora_), he playing the female rôle on that occasion as well as subsequently. G. Z.’s relations with his father are very stressed. They hardly speak to each other. He is employed in his father’s office, but has only business relations with him. His whole spare time he devotes to his mother. One day he surprised his mother with the information that he had had his father watched and found out that the father maintained clandestine relations with a number of women. He requested his mother to break with the father. He raised a terrible row with his father, ordering the father to withdraw from the office and leave the business entirely to him, and at that the father showed him the door. A letter from the mother convinces him that he is not the son of his father; thereupon he locks himself in the room and commits suicide by shooting himself.
Jealousy of the father had driven him to suicide. During the acts with the fatherly friend he played the rôle of the son replacing the women in the life of the father.
66. Mr. T. B., 32 years of age, like Case 64, is also unable to work. He has tried everything but cannot make anything go. His father is a common employee reduced to seek occasionally the son’s financial aid. But the young man now stays at home and complains of attacks which he describes as of an epileptic nature, occurring only at night, but which prove to be hysterical anxiety attacks. His brother is diligent and hard-working, the favorite of the family. When the brother is praised he turns so wild that he is boiling with rage. He speaks but little with the brother, exchanging with him only necessary words. Regarding his father he declares that living together with him he finds most painful. He has delicate tastes. But his father’s manner of eating and talking rouses his anger. He will bless the day when he shall once more be working and in a position to leave the parental home. The mother was on his side, believed in his illness and in the genuineness of his attacks, and comes at night during his attacks to his bed, trying to help him and to quiet him to the best of her powers. The mother alone knows that he is homosexual and she does not disturb him in the least on that score. But she turns jealous as soon as she sees him pay any attention to a girl, and every night, too, she comes to the kitchen to make sure that her sons are not taking advantage of the servant girls. She accompanies the ailing son on his errands and is his confidante. She does not get along at all well with her husband and they have ceased marital relations long ago. There are thus two parties in the house, he with his mother, and the father with the other son.
Moreover, the ailing son raises various issues so that there are daily quarrels and conflicts in the house. The father published a statement in the newspaper to the effect that he will no longer be responsible for debts and obligations contracted by the son. Thereupon the mother, who earns an independent income with her piano lessons, left the house together with her favorite son. They rented another home for themselves and the mother hopes that the separation and the quiet care will bring about her son’s complete recovery. At this stage T. B. is brought to me for analysis. Two days later I am called to the father. T. B. had gone there under an excuse and while searching among the books he was seized with a very severe attack and had to be put to bed. He was now so ill that he could not leave the bed. It was the love of the father that had driven him to the place. He could not live without seeing his father and could not endure the thought of leaving the father alone with the brother. The mother moved back to the old home. As prerequisites for my analysis I suggested isolation of the subject and moderate occupation, and the mother apparently agreed. Next day the patient wrote me that on account of his attacks he would be unable to live among strangers, and that therefore he must give up the treatment. An experience similar to that I had with the epileptic, Case No. 51.
The specific phantasy during his indulgences in which he played always a passive rôle, represented him as the mother who gives herself up to the father. The following dream yielded some light on the matter:
“_I lie on the bed in a remarkable attire, a hood on my head and dressed in a green robe. I gaze in a looking-glass and instead of my person I see my mother, and father in the act of bending over her to give her a kiss. Now the image in the looking-glass fuses with the original, the two coming together and forming a single picture. I feel myself turning into a woman and everything male about me falls off or disappears. I have long black hair, a white skin and a high voice. My arms stretch out to embrace a man and I awake with a feeling of anxiety and a rapid heart beat._”
An analysis of this dream is superfluous. The subject was unwilling to see its meaning.
But the fixation upon the mother is often also marked with hatred. It must not be thought that the homosexual is always disposed pleasantly towards the mother. It also happens that the love for the mother is covered under an overt hatred and an unnatural disgust, as is shown by the following case:
67. H. U., 24-year-old sculptor, homosexual as long as he can remember. His inclination is always towards waiters and restaurant employees. Has four sisters and an older brother who had to go to America and is lost to them. His father is a writer, a genial but impractical man who stuck to journalism. He clings to his father with every fiber of his heart, protecting him against the attacks of the mother who is tired of her husband’s continual love affairs and cannot stand them any longer. The father lives in a dreamy state continuously, passing from one ecstasy, lasting from several days to a week, into another. He is not finicky in his love adventures, drawing the line neither at servant girls nor at prostitutes; daily he has some new rendezvous and in that way squanders a great portion of his income. There are always quarrels in the house, and the father does not like to stay at home, preferring to spend his evenings in the public houses. The relations between mother and son are as unpleasant as between the parents. The son always lets his mother know that she is repulsive to him. If she attempts to come near him in the room he avoids her, shouting: “_Don’t touch me, mir graust vor dir,—you give me the shivers!_” He never permits her to fondle him, and has no good word for the poor tortured woman. Towards his sister he is also always sarcastic, aloof, and likes to meet her admirers to make uncomplimentary remarks about her to them. The situation became seriously aggravated, he had to leave the house, and now wants to meet no one of the family except the father, whom he sees daily at the newspaper office. He hates fanatically all women and dotes on _Strindberg_ and _Weininger_.
Back of this hatred of women stands his great love for the mother, the sisters, and all women. In that respect he is exactly like his father, whose fate he does not want to share. He protects himself against the love for his mother because he would be lost and subordinate to women if he yielded. The gruesome quarrels which he witnessed during his childhood showed him a father who ruined himself on account of women, a man unable to achieve the full expression of his high ideal because he squandered his energies on numerous love adventures. Homosexuality serves him as a protection against all womanhood. His attachment to waiters is explained through the fact that his mother had been a waitress whom his father had married after she had become pregnant by him so as to legitimatize the child. After two weeks he breaks up the analysis because he feels that his attitude towards women is being changed. In that attitude lies his security. Among waiters he prefers small young boys who remind him of his sister.
This fixation upon the sister is not so rare, as is shown by the next case, which dates back to my earlier psychoanalytic experience.
68. Mr. P. G., teacher in a high school (_Realschule professor_), consults me on account of an ailment which began a few weeks ago and which threatens to destroy all his joy of living. He is 26 years of age and has had no sexual intercourse. In fact, he has not had even one genuine love affair. A few months ago he met a girl whom he liked very much and they became engaged. They were to be married in six months. She is a friend of his sister’s, a girl to whom he had not previously paid any particular attention but during an outing he got to know her and to appreciate her so well that he fell suddenly in love with her. It was not a great consuming passion,—rather a mutual understanding and a strong spiritual kinship. He was abstinent through conviction. He wanted to enter the marriage bond a pure man and was proud that in that respect he was unlike his friends and colleagues. Then something happened in his life which threatened to break him to pieces and even drove him to thoughts of suicide. I relate the occurrence in his own words:
“In my class there is a very beautiful, physically imposing, slim, bright young fellow whom I liked on account of his excellent answers and fine manners. I directed my questions at him with great pleasure, whenever the other boys could not answer, knowing that I would always receive from him the correct answer, and I have often held this favorite scholar of mine up to the others as an example of how they ought to be. One night I dreamed that the boy was lying in my bed and that I embraced and kissed him. I woke up, scared, and presently quieted down. ‘Nonsense,’ I said to myself. ‘Anything may come up in a dream!’ At school that day I found myself somewhat uneasy towards that boy because I could not help thinking about my dream. I avoided putting any questions to him. As was frequently his habit, the boy waited for me after school hours and asked permission to accompany me on the way. We had to go the same road and I was pleased to pass the time talking with him. He entertained me. I heard a great deal about what the pupils were saying about the teachers and it seemed to me very interesting. Teaching means building up souls, and so I wanted to implant every noble and high ideal in the soul of this child.
“I granted him also that day, gladly, permission to come along. I was strikingly distracted and silent. Whereas formerly I had been in the habit of taking him by the arm now and then, this time I avoided all intimate contact, because the dream stood between me and the handsome young boy, rendering any intimacy or informality impossible. I reached home and very promptly went to my bride. She found me absent-minded, wanted to know the reason,—and about that, naturally, I could but be silent. I wanted to show her tenderness; she goaded me with her kisses and caresses. But, oh, horrors! In the midst of her kisses my mind turned to the young fellow and when I felt her lips, so warm, I thought it was the boy’s lips. I pushed her, scared, out of my arms, pretending I did not feel well, and hurried back home.
“I was so excited that for a long time I could not fall asleep. I decided I would fight the insane passion. I had heard before passingly about boy love, knew also that it was the custom and fashion of the day in ancient Greece, but I myself had never before entertained the least thought of a man or boy. I felt I ought to remain a teacher no longer if I failed to conquer the feeling and to master the impression of the dream picture on my mind, conjured up, undoubtedly, by unconscious wishes. I resolved to be strict with myself, to give up the attachment to the boy, and to avoid his company after school hours. For it was I who first spoke up and invited him to keep me company on the way home. I resolved to be strong and to devote once more all my affection and my love to my bride.
“Next school day I forced myself not to turn my gaze towards the boy’s seat. But I could not help looking that way and the first glance rushed the blood to my cheeks. He was as beautiful as a Greek boy, his form so delicate, his eyes so smiling,—I could have lost myself for hours in the contemplation of that wonderful face. I roused from my day dreaming, which, fortunately, had passed unnoticed by the class. But I wanted to neutralize the impression that my gazing at the boy may have made upon the class and called upon the boy. I was severe, unmercifully severe with him, and sought to catch him in some error. And who fails to find an error when looking hard for it? Then I reprimanded the boy so severely that he began to cry and returned to his seat weeping, and he was unable to quiet down for some time after that. Then I became really angry. I was trying to stifle the inner voice which was whispering: ‘It is unfair for you to torture thus the innocent boy; he is not responsible for your awful thoughts....’ I disregarded that and scolded him.
“On the street the boy did not dare to offer to join me. I hurried past him and wandered for hours on the streets like a madman. I reproached myself, regretting the lost opportunity for enjoying the boy’s company and wept over the breaking up of the beautiful friendship between scholar and teacher. I resolved to be fair the next day with the boy and to pay no attention to him. But a wild demoniac power, stronger than my good resolutions, impelled me once more to hurt the boy’s feelings and to humiliate him before the class. It looked as if I was bent on revenging myself on him for the trouble he had cost me. I knew that I punished myself doing so, that I suffered far more than the boy, although he, too, changed in appearance, became timid, looked badly and obviously suffered under the unjust treatment. I also became irritable, morose, nervous. I lost completely my nervous equilibrium. I began to avoid my bride’s company. It seemed to me a profanation on my part of her pure love so long as I was consumed with such passion for a boy. She also became cooler and more reserved, because she could not understand me.
“Eventually things improved at school. I learned to control myself and to act more fairly. We resumed the walks once more; the boy accompanied me again after school hours; sometimes we walked on and on for hours, and we even met specially during the holidays. In his company I felt happy and all my wishes seemed gratified. I enjoyed his beauty and his lively mind and counted the minutes to pass when we should meet again.
“Then something happened which opened my eyes. My bride wrote me a letter breaking up our engagement. It did not even affect me as deeply as I had thought it would, whenever reflecting previously on the possibility. Very well—I thought to myself—now you can devote yourself entirely to your beloved boy! At the same time I felt during the day the same physical excitation which I had theretofore experienced only in my dreams. Then I realized that I must avoid the boy if I was to keep from committing a crime. My first task, I thought, would be to make up again with the bride; secondly, I must give up the school so as to not meet the boy again. My bride was resolute, however, insisting that she had become convinced that I did not love her. I kept secrets from her. I was on the very point of confessing everything and of telling her the whole truth. I threw myself, weeping, to her feet. She said quietly: ‘Don’t! What is done cannot be undone. It is better that we should part. Don’t make the parting hard for me. Let’s leave one another good friends and think kindly of me.’ Then she hurried out of the room and left me to myself.
“Next day when I went to the school the boy was not there; he was ill. Another boy reported he was kept at home on account of scarlet fever. My anxiety about him was boundless. I could think of nothing but that boy. A schoolmate had to bring me daily reports about his condition. Often I wandered in the neighborhood of his home, up and down the streets, and at night I watched the lamplit window of the room where a sister was taking care of him. Finally I heard that he was convalescing, that all danger was over, and that he would return to school in a few weeks. I had to keep a strong grip on myself at school to be able to carry on my lectures at all. My thoughts were perpetually centered on my beloved boy pupil. Continually I kept thinking: How many days longer must I keep longing? In three weeks he will be here! My heart danced with joy at the thought....
“There had to be a change. I could not keep on living that way. I took my father into confidence and he sent me to you, thinking that you would be able to furnish good advice and aid in this difficult case.”
I offered at first no advice and no help. To begin with, I allowed the love-sick fellow to speak out everything that was on his mind and that in itself lightened his burden. Then I undertook to obtain an insight into his mental life before the advent of his boy love.
It turned out that he had really loved and still loves but one person in the wide world: his sister. The affection for the bride was but a substitute for his love of the sister. His bride was also homosexual and loved in him but the brother of her best girl friend. As the girl friend (his sister) cooled off during their engagement, preferring another friendship (obviously led thereto by unconscious jealousy of the brother), her own affection for the young man cooled off and she promptly made use of the opportunity to break off with him. The opportunity arose conveniently enough and the severing of the engagement reacted most painfully upon the school teacher who had reasons of his own for reproaching himself most bitterly.
_The more his bride kept away from his sister the greater was his indifference to the bride. But the boy resembled his sister very closely._
He never thought of this similarity before. They had the same eyes, the same color of hair, and the same voice, and these played a strong rôle with him. During that critical period his sister was interested in a certain physician. He felt he was about to lose her affection and sought a substitute for her and that he found in his pupil....
Now he was in a position to come to an understanding with his sister. She had the requisite psychologic insight to understand him fully and to lend him intelligent assistance towards his recovery.