The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel - The Life Story of a Pioneer Psychoanalyst. Wilhelm Stekel
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splendidly prepared, each address a remarkable experience—we looked forward to every lesson we had with him. These two examples prove that the behavior of pupils depends, in a large measure, upon the teachers. Our Latin and Greek teacher, whom we had from the first to the eighth class, was esteemed because he was just and human; he never complained about our conduct. However, let us draw the veil over the other schoolmasters—the dry perfectionists to whom historical dates were more important than real wisdom and to whom a wrong Greek aorist was sufficient cause to compel a pupil to repeat an entire year’s work and thus burden a family with doubt and embarrassment. I do not exaggerate when I say that the fate of humanity lies in the hands of teachers. I consider it to be the foremost duty of the state to take care of its teachers to the extent that they do not become embittered, that they maintain their joy of life and share it with their pupils. It is a duty of both the family and the school to bring up happy and independent people. It is regrettable that governments which have huge sums for armaments and wars are so miserly in budgeting their educational programs. In my opinion, education should be the most respected and rewarded item in the budgets of the governments of the world.
Fifty years after our class matriculated, we had a reunion. More than twenty of us gathered together for this celebration. What an assembly of old ghosts we were! The American author, Washington Irving, would have regarded his amusing and enlightening Rip van Winkle as a prosaic fellow, indeed, had he seen us. We tried futilely to rekindle the fire of our former enthusiasm. We found that we were indifferent to each other. We were strangers who tried to behave as though we were friends. Fifty years before we had vanished from each other’s lives. Now we were back. But physical proximity could not restore our warmth. The reunion was a dismal failure!
FIRST LOVE
Which of our emotions is lasting? I mentioned that I wrote poems, mostly about nature, and some humorous ones. Then came the event that made me feel like a true poet. As I was walking along the usual promenade, an extremely pretty girl, Bertha, looked at me. It came like a lightning flash—love at first sight. I ran to my friends and declared, “I am very happy because I am unhappily in love.” Now a regular stream of poems flowed. I made eyes at Bertha on every occasion, usually from a distance. When she sent me a message telling me not to stare at her, I continued to gaze at her, but from a longer distance. I was happy in the unhappiness that provided the inspiration for new poems. For a long time I could not understand why I loved her at first sight. Then I noticed that my mother had the same slanting look and the same eyes. Love at first sight is a revival of an infantile impression. The first love object reappears in a different disguise. The crystallization of such an ideal usually originates in early childhood; the ideal in reality represents the past projected into the future. I kept my ideal apart from my carnal experiences.
BETWEEN MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM
The mixture of idealism and materialism was evident at this period of my life. While I had dreams of becoming a great poet, I tried to build my physical strength by exercise and continence. I spent all available free time at the gymnasium or on long hikes with my friends. I also set some of my own poems to music. At first, my friends laughed at my efforts. Later I was more clever and disguised my compositions as songs by Schubert—then the poems were enthusiastically applauded. Years later I heard one of my songs in a students’ fraternity; it had found its way to the public. Many students learned my songs, and the songs were passed on from person to person. They were accepted only when they were believed to be compositions by Schubert or Schumann.
Years passed. School was like play for me; in the afternoon I gave lessons, but I had enough time for reading and music. However, the day I left high school (Gymnasium) was one of the happiest of my life. The freedom which followed the restrictions of the school made me feel as though I were drunk with champagne. We, the happy ones, the higher beings, strutted back and forth along the promenade, canes in our hands, the latter a violation of one of the school’s strictest regulations. I longed to study the German language and the history of mankind, but the prospects of so doing were poor. Besides, I was eager to see Vienna. The University of Czernowitz had no medical faculty. The study of medicine offered a good reason for me to go to Vienna.
At the final examination everybody was asked to state what he was going to study. I answered, “German and history.” The good old principal, Wolf, called out, “You ought to become a journalist.” I had not thought of this career before, but I knew that since I had a definite talent in this direction, I could fall back upon it in an emergency.
Then came a joyful vacation time. The governor of the county, Baron W., invited me to stay with him on his estate. I had tutored his son, a fellow student, successfully and now I was to coach another son in Latin.
At Baron W.’s I learned about the lives of aristocrats from many angles. There was always an abundance of guests, and they did not think that the baron would have invited a Jew. Thus I had the opportunity to listen to many frank and unrestrained anti-Semitic talks. I was astounded. I had not realized that the Jew played such a part in the discussions of Gentiles. I felt sorry for these guests. Even then I realized that by blaming the Jew for all of their own failings and by projecting their own guilt feelings upon him, they were tragically depriving themselves of the opportunity for a radical improvement and spiritual progress.
1 “Analyse der Phobie eines fünfjährigen Knaben” (Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy), Coll. Papers, Vol. VIII, pp. 127-264 (German edition).
2 Macaulay Co., New York, 1931.
3 Bukovina is now in the U.S.S.R.—The Editor.
4 This experience, together with similar experiences of his friends, was later used as a basis for Stekel’s first medical paper on the Sex Life in Children. It was published independently of Freud who later quoted from it in one of his early works on infantile sexuality.—The Editor.
1 He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1949.—The Editor.
2 Notice that Stekel uses the term “parapath” which he proposed for “neurotic.”—The Editor.
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