The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel - The Life Story of a Pioneer Psychoanalyst. Wilhelm Stekel
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it had completely disappeared from her memory. She only recalled that my older brother once knocked her down and she showed me a little scar which resulted from this assault. A distinct “screen memory.”)
Did I see my little wife a second time? I do not know. I see myself riding home in a simple cart in which there are many grown-ups. I am entrusted to the care of a man during the trip which requires one hour. I have a small wooden flute like those which peasants make. I try to play on it. The flute falls from my hand to the road. I cry bitterly. The carriage stops. Some of the men go down to look for the flute. The passengers are in a hurry. They shout to the driver, “Go on! Go on!” The cart rumbles and creaks over the dusty road. I sadly look back. My crying has been in vain. The hot sun presses the tears against my cheeks. The wonderful flute is lost forever.
How can I learn why this scene is engraved so deeply in my memory? Was the flute the symbol of the lost girl? Does the loss represent the loss of my sweetheart? Have I taken this scene from the treasure-house of my memories and kept it because it reminds me of the beautiful words, “Everything that passes by is only a smile”?
Do we really know what processes occur in a child’s brain? Most of us forget our own childhood except for a few scattered images. What Freud calls “repression” seems to represent a purely protective function of our psychic life. To live means to forget things which make life painful. One of my patients who suffered from agoraphobia confessed to me that she had often played improperly with her son. The boy had shared her bed from infancy until some time after puberty. The woman abruptly stopped having sexual intimacies with her son and behaved irreproachably thenceforth. She tried to erase the effects of her earlier mistakes by giving her son an excellent education. Following her recovery I heard nothing of the patient or her son for a long time. One day a twenty-one-year-old man, the patient’s son, came to see me in my office. He suffered from depressions and one of my experienced assistants took over his treatment, after I informed the doctor of the salient facts I knew from the mother. My assistant and I waited tensely for weeks and months to see whether our patient would recall his embarrassing childhood experiences; he did not.
It is hard to determine whether he did not wish or was unable to recall. The analysis suggested that he re-lived these early impressions in his day-dreams and that it was apparently this factor that was responsible for his inability to concentrate and for his depressions. However, when the analysis came close to the problem in question, the patient displayed the “flight reflex” and discontinued the treatment.
But to return to the “central character” and good chronological order. From my first memories emerge a lot of irrelevant ones. I know I was not a model child. I was wild, stubborn, defiant; I was a problem child and very difficult to bring up. My mother had a remarkable principle: each human being must have a time in his life in which he can storm out his temperament. She read this sentence in some book or she heard it in the theater, but it was her principle, and she used to say, “It’s better my child storms now than later.”
Marysia had gone, and my poor mother had the whole burden of the naughty boy; but she never lost her patience, and I was never physically punished by her.
After the death of my grandmother we moved to a place where many houses stood in a circle around a big court; nearby were large lawns and gardens. There were a lot of “good-for-nothing” boys and girls; we liked to climb over the fence into a big orchard which was not used, and therefore neglected and growing wild, and this orchard was our playground. Usually we played cops and robbers, but also many less innocent games and we had many talks on the riddle of sex. The story of the innocence of children is a fairy tale. Whoever insists on the truth of this fairy tale does not know children, for when not directly controlled by adults, they soon show their true nature.
I do not remember the first day I went to school (a milestone for every child). I was so engrossed in my daydreams and games that school and learning were intensely boring. I remember some teachers, some pranks, some wanton talks with other boys; in class, I did not pay attention to the lectures. The results were miserable. I had the worst possible marks and frequently was “kept in” to learn my lessons.
Suppose that a teacher or a doctor had examined me at that time; he would have stated that I was not fit for school and, perhaps, that I was a backward child. I have often had the opportunity to console parents who complained about their children’s bad marks in the elementary school. Many “slow” children live in a world of fantasy which is stronger than anything else. The world of fairy tales gives them more pleasure than that of reality. I want to emphasize that I was not the only naughty child; there were dozens and dozens like myself. Later they became virtuous citizens; some were successes, some were failures.
BOOKS
We moved again. Now I attended a Protestant, coeducational school, which was known as a model school. My teachers were kind, the spirit of the school was excellent, the teaching was stimulating. The children were from a higher social stratum than were my earlier classmates. There were none of the roughnecks of the former period.
I was able to read very early, but I had never read stories. But now I had a delightful experience. I found a children’s book. I can visualize the picture on the title page: a powerful giant, a little boy, and a church bell. I see myself lying on the couch and devouring line after line with my cheeks burning. That day I discovered my “reading ego,” and my passion for reading has remained throughout my life. My parents used my voracious reading as a means of restraining me when I ran wild. When visitors came I was, as a rule, a nuisance and a troublemaker. I wanted to be the center of attention, and tormented visitors with thousands of questions; but if I had a book with illustrations, I looked at the pictures, let my fantasy drift, and hours would pass by in perfect silence. When I accompanied my parents on a visit to friends, my first question directed to our hosts was, “Have you any books with illustrations?” When my wish was granted I did not molest the adults any more.
I must mention here that the games with the boys continued, although in a different form; we now were a gang, and our captain was a boy of fourteen. We had to obey like soldiers. And yet I must say that the interest in books was stronger than anything else. My brother, who was six years my senior, had the same passion. He already had a small library; the books were in a locked bookcase; I could see them through the glass. I remember having had an idea that if my brother should die I would inherit all these beautiful books.
I tried to get books at any price. I borrowed them from other boys, and sometimes I bought the cruel books about Indians. Most of them were dirty and torn. They had passed through many hands. Usually I identified myself with the hero, and in my daydreams I was a great man, the leader of an army (the Austrian army, of course), fighting against the armies of the Czar and killing thousands of enemies. At this time an actress lived in our house, and sometimes I received complimentary tickets (standing room) from her. But I do not remember the plays. I only know how sorry I felt when the theatre was empty. I counted every visitor and was glad when a new one arrived. I wanted to create my own plays. Our theatre was the porch of the Greek Orthodox Church which stood in the center of a vast meadow surrounded by a fence. Everything was improvised, and I invariably played the villain or the robber captain.
I am sorry to say that I also wanted to be a real robber; sometimes all my wild instincts overwhelmed me. I stole money from my father’s pocket, bought candies and shared them with the gang. We caught innocent boys and gave them a good hiding. Mothers came to my mother to complain bitterly about this monster of a child. I could tell many stories of my misdeeds.
THE SHOEMAKER’S APPRENTICE
Now the situation became serious. My parents decided I was a good-for-nothing. I would never be a good student. I was in the first grade of the high school, and at the bottom of my class. So my father said to my mother, “Let him become a shoemaker.” They decided to send me to a shoemaker as an apprentice. I was very happy at this decision. Not to go to school any more! Not to be compelled to learn Latin and mathematics. It sounded like a release from the tortures of hell. Not to be looked upon as if I were a dumbbell.