of jealousy. She is jealous of her home, watching over it like one might
watch and protect a beloved. She has an older sister who has been
married for five years past and lives outside Vienna. That sister was
more to her than her mother or any other friend. She looked upon her as
a second mother, confided all her secrets in her and allowed herself to
be guided and advised by her at every step. She was supremely happy in
her companionship and desired nothing better. She loved only that one
sister,—towards the other members of the family she was more or less
indifferent. Suddenly the family decided to marry off that sister and an
aunt brought a suitor to the house. She found that suitor ridiculous,
unsuitable for the sister, and fought with all her limited powers
against the match. But the mother showed the greatest eagerness for an
early marriage. Then it happened that the girl awoke suddenly in the
night. Like a thunder a terrible thought flashed through her mind: “_You
must do away with your mother!_” (It was the last desperate soul cry in
the attempt to hold on forever to her sister. The mother was the
original cause of her misfortune. She could not live without the
sister.) The thought so shocked her, the subsequent regrets over it kept
her in a very depressed mood. She developed a severe neurosis,
consisting chiefly of a series of punishments and expiations to which
she deliberately subjected herself. And shortly after that she developed
her jealousy of the home. Her sister lived outside Vienna at a small
place in Hungary and occasionally came to Vienna. It was natural that
she should find a place in the comfortable old home of seven rooms which
the family occupied alone. But the girl could not tolerate the sister’s
presence in the house. She became depressed, began to cry, found that
the furniture was being abused and ruined, could not sleep nights, and
daily asked her sister: “How long are you going to stay in town?” so
that the sister cut her visit as short as possible.
This went on for several years. Year after year the sister brought a new
baby into the world and she could not tolerate her sister’s children in
the old home. Every time a visit with the children made her so seriously
ill that finally the mother begged the sister to find some other rooming
place. The children were hardly tolerated in the house; they had to be
kept in one certain room. The girl was always afraid that something in
the house would be ruined. That this was not jealousy of her mother is
shown by the fact that it did not affect her to have the mother visit
the sister. In fact she joined the mother readily on such visits and
behaved very pleasantly and quietly at her sister’s. Only when it was a
question of the old home she became a storming avenging angel. Naturally
she also wanted to have her mother to herself. Her boundless jealousy of
the sister had apparently disappeared altogether and had switched over
to the old home where the two had been once so supremely happy. Thoughts
of hatred against the sister’s children and phantasies about doing away
with them, also occurred. She thought of a subtle poison that could be
given with the food in her home. Perhaps she feared the presence of her
sister and sister’s children in the house for that very reason and the
fear may have been a protection against her criminal tendencies.
She had loved truly but one person: her sister. The latter was
everything in the world to her. She called her the second mother, her
friend, her beloved. Her first thought when she awoke in the morning was
of her sister, the endeavor to please her filled her life, and the last
thing she did before going to bed was to offer a prayer for her sister.
She was good and upright because she loved her sister and because she
felt happy that her sister gave all her spare time up to her. She was
trained by her, they went on walks together, her sister trained her
heart. She was supremely happy and wished nothing more than always so to
live beside her sister.
Then came the engagement and her sister’s marriage. Her heart bled at
that terrible act of treason and her feelings hardened. She hated
everything, she was against the whole world: against the mother who
instigated the match, against the other sisters, who had also favored
it, against the brothers who did not oppose it. Only an old nurse woman
who had always stood by her and was her staff of support, exceptionally
escaped her hatred remaining a sort of solitary ray of affection. But
the house was filled with memories of the beloved sister. The pieces of
furniture were mute but eloquent witnesses of her former happy love
state. They should not be profaned by the presence of the unfaithful,
changed sister! She hated the children, wishing they were dead and at
the same time she was afraid she might hurt them. Two souls struggled in
her breast: one a criminal, the other ethical. The sight of the children
was repulsive to her. They bore the traits of the sister and of the man
who had stolen her away.
Her whole possessions consisted now of her memory and the household
goods, the old rooms furnished the necessary real background for her
phantasies. “Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven
out,” said _Jean Paul_. Her residence became to her a temple of memory,
a sanctuary where every piece of furniture recalled the past happiness
in which she still projected herself. For her days passed in dreaming
and weaving of fancies. She idled away sweet hours and days continually
dreaming only of her sister. Criminal fancies of poisoning all the
others finally led her, by way of punishment, to fear poisoning. She
quit eating anything at the table, as she formerly did. She suspected
poison in every food. She began to vomit after her meals. She kept away
from everybody except one woman friend who stuck to her faithfully and
who shared her revulsion of feeling against the sister. She lived
continually in fear she might kill her mother because the imperative
(kill her!) kept cropping up all the time. She avoided men. All attempts
to interest her in some man eventually to get her married off proved
fruitless....
The home was her temple which must not be soiled. All her devotion and
her affection were centered daily on that spot.
The case approaches closely the realm of psychosis.
After a course of psychoanalysis lasting about one half year she
improved a great deal. She was able to tolerate her sister’s visits, was
free of the obsessive thought of killing her mother, was again able to
eat any food and her “nervous” vomiting ceased altogether. A very
favorable offer of marriage she rejected. She still avoided men as
resolutely as ever.
We turn to the next case.
75. Mr. R. T., a well-known poet, only 31 years of age, is also a victim
of morbid jealousy and has already experienced very serious conflicts on
that account. He was always fixed on his family and lived exclusively
for his parents and other members of the immediate family circle. He
clung particularly to the mother, with worshipful affection. At 18 years
of age he began to fall in love with all his friends’ “girls.” He even
fell in love with a street woman whom his best friend often visited.
Already at that time he showed a strong jealous streak and he asked that
woman to give up her unfortunate way of living. (That is a typical
experience with young fellows who are fixed on the mother. They seek out
a polar obverse to their mother’s character and associate with that
person a fancy of being the savior. The savior phantasy covers,
according to my investigation, merely the wish to save one’s self....)
He was soon through with this love affair, although it had broken out
with great passion, and had to leave Berlin because he could not get
along with his parents. He always quarreled with his mother and that
interfered with his creative work.
Meanwhile he became very famous and was earning a very comfortable
income. He fell into the habit of spending his nights at restaurants and
other amusement places in the company of friends and of returning home
in the early morning hours. He woke up at noon and wrote a few hours
during the afternoon,—that was his only work.
At a certain cabaret he became acquainted with a girl who was in charge
of the bar. She was 35 years of age at the time, but gave her age as 28,
and in fact looked much younger than she was. He began having relations
with that girl, looking upon the affair as a trivial adventure, at
first. He knew that she was being supported by a Count but this did not
prevent him from allowing her to choose him for her “heart love.” He was
tremendously flattered that this girl, or perhaps we would better say,
this woman, preferred him to all others and loved him so
disinterestedly. His affection grew daily, also her love for him. She
finally gave up her Count and told our young man that she loved him
only, and would never again give herself to any other man. It made him
very happy; they rented lodgings together. But soon he requested her to
give up her position at the bar, because there she came into too close
contact with men. She did that very willingly. Before they had taken up
lodgings together he had asked her to give him a complete history of her
past life. She told him a very romantic life history and mentioned four
men who had had sexual relations with her. (As a matter of fact dozens
of men had cohabited with her.)
He was madly jealous of these men. She had to repeat to him the story of
her past over and over, then he became angry, also sexually very
excited, figured how he would revenge himself on his rivals, how he
would beat them, box their ears or shoot them down in a duel or cut them
up with his sword; his rage against the unfortunate woman grew all the
time, he scolded her, called her every bad name, threatened to leave her
at once, struck her, and in the end had intercourse with her,
experiencing powerful orgasm.
Before long he began to be troubled with the uncertainty whether she had
told the whole truth. He investigated her past, looking up questionable
episodes. A detective was engaged to watch her during his absence and to
look up her past. The fellow quickly picked up the gossip of the
neighborhood and reported the talk as true. Besides the adventures
frankly confessed to him a number of other liaisons were traced, which
the woman had failed to mention. She also had to admit that she was
older than she had held herself out to be.
There followed years of terrible torture and continual torture. First
thing in the morning he began to wonder who else among his acquaintances
or among strangers may have possessed the woman. He questioned her
persistently, his rage growing, he made her take a solemn oath, then he
struck her and tried to extract from her a forced confession. In vain
she implored him, begging him to realize that she was not responsible
for her past, that she did not know him at the time, that she was but a
child when she already had to support the whole household and a sick
mother; nothing helped, he was implacable.
When his investigations led accidentally to the discovery of another man
who had not previously figured in the list of her adventures he threw a
glass at her head and hurt her so seriously that she was ill several
weeks. He sought quarrels with her former sweethearts and challenged
them on the least provocation, wounding several in duel, as he was an
excellent duellist.
Finally the lovers separated. The woman could stand it no longer and
threatened to take her life. But, in a few weeks she fell ill and had
him called to her sick bed. Another time the reverse occurred. In
short—the pair could not keep away from each other. It was the last
love of this woman who had lost her early first charms. Through this
love she hoped to save herself and either marry or attain the
quasi-respectability of a similar state. But he had entered this
relationship lightly as he had done in similar cases and he now
suddenly found himself entangled in a tight net which isolated him
from the world. For he did not dare to go out with her. He always had
the unpleasant thought he might meet one of her former lovers,—he even
watched the faces of all passers-by to see whether they did not laugh
at him.
He had a friend who was very devoted to him. That friend hated his
partner, because she had robbed him of his best friend. That friend was
his complete slave. He became the poor woman’s guardian. But the friend
had a peculiar passion. He desired to possess all women who belonged to
his friends. (This is a transparent homosexual mask as I have already
pointed out in the present work.) Therefore he made love also to this
woman, who planned her revenge by apparently accepting his advances and
when she had in her hands proofs of the fellow’s intention, she turned
the proofs over to her beloved. A terrible scene ensued, including
revolver shots, but fortunately no one was hurt.
Next he began to torment the woman regarding her relations with that
friend. He obviously looked for an excuse to break with her, and
solemnly resolved to leave her for good if he should discover the least
thing out of the way in her conduct. But she was so cowed by his snares
that she did not dare to go out on the street alone....
The motives of his conduct are clear. We have here a pronounced case of
homosexuality manifesting itself as jealousy of other men. The thought
that this or that other man had possessed her is precisely what
constituted the woman’s highest charm in his eyes. When the man declares
that he would have been happy if he could have met this woman in her
virgin purity, he is mistaken. He will always seek the street walker,
the disreputable woman. She is the more charming because she is older
than he. For he is longing for the mother _Imago_ and therefore he is
most happy, too, when she mothers him. Like most homosexuals he is
strongly attached to the mother. But unlike the overt homosexuals he has
not carried out his flight all the way to the male, but has fled,
instead, to the _puella publica_, the dishonored woman....
He would like to get rid of this woman. But he has become more deeply
enmeshed with her through his feeling of guilt on account of the wound
he had caused her and which had left an ugly scar on her face. Since he
wishes she were dead in order to be free of her, his conscience
indissolubly binds him tenfold to his victim. His criminal fancies
center continually on the poor tortured woman and her former lovers.
Under the mask of his jealousy he gives free rein to his criminal
fancies. In addition, like most artists he is very superstitious and
believes that the woman had brought him good luck. Since he has her, he
has created his best work and under the inspiration of the strong
excitement, he has achieved his best results. It thus seems that the
relationship is fixed for life and he may never be able to give it
up....
Naturally there are also other forms of jealousy. But when it appears in
this pathologic form, it is never difficult to trace the homosexual
factor and with it the criminal tendencies back of it. The last case
given above is particularly convincing and the friend’s behavior very
characteristic.
Our subject feels impelled to think of the woman’s lovers driven thereto
by his homosexual longing. He thinks of them in a roundabout way, so to
speak, through and around the woman. Jealousy enables him to dwell on
the picture of the naked man; he thinks of the _phallus_ of his rival,
compares it with his own; he drinks in the bliss which his beloved must
have tasted through another man; he places himself entirely in the
woman’s rôle, so that, in his fancy, he is the woman. He hates the woman
in himself and transfers that hatred upon his second self, his beloved.
He hates the woman also because she cannot successfully substitute the
man for him. Before that liaison he spent his nights in cafès and wine
rooms in the exclusive company of men. He no longer does that. He does
not leave his beloved alone any more, thus lacking the excitation of
manly company. He tortures his mother as he does his beloved whenever he
goes home for a few days. He loves her so dearly that he cannot live
through a day without calling her up from Vienna all the way to Berlin,
where she lives, to talk to her. If he is somewhere where he cannot be
reached by telephone his mother must wire him daily. It is very
interesting how this love of the mother covers the deeper love of the
father. He plays the love of his mother as his trump card against the
father. He flees from the sexual love of the father, while yet he has
been repeatedly conscious of his incest phantasies towards the mother.
He always adds to his mother _Imago_ some kind of a father. He was most
jealous of an attorney, already grey haired and a married man, who
therefore stood as a symbol of the father. He has even gone so far as to
look up that man to demand an explanation from him, thereby making
himself ridiculous. His jealousy was particularly suitable as a means
for his latent sadism to become manifest. It enabled him to dwell on
bloodcurdling phantasies, it made it reasonable for him to injure his
beloved sweetheart, and to justify that insane deed as due to excess of
love. The analysis brought about a distinct improvement in the
situation. He joined again his comrades at the public houses and peace
was seldom disturbed after that.
How difficult it is at times to ferret out the homosexual root of
jealousy in such situations is shown by the next case, in which jealousy
is again masked before the subject’s consciousness.
76. Miss K. N. consults me for a peculiar trouble about her sleep. She
is extremely sensitive to noise. She lives with her sister who keeps a
very small apartment where one little room is rented to a gentleman. Her
nervousness consists of uncontrollable reflections, as soon as evening
begins, about the lodger’s return home. If he returns and goes to sleep
early, she herself is soon quiet and sleeps well through the night. But
if he is away, she cannot sleep. She may fall into slumber but sleeps so
lightly that she is awake at the least noise until she hears the lodger
return at last to his room. Then a terrible feeling of dread comes over
her and her heart begins to beat fast. Other noises also seem to disturb
her. The house in which she lives is near a railroad track. But the
trains do not disturb her, nor the electric cars. But voices in the next
room, and the sound of steps on the floor above, keep her awake.
One would suppose that she wishes the lodger would come to her and is
afraid of that. But she insists that the gentleman is indifferent to
her, she would not kiss him if he gave her millions in money for it. She
is an unlucky person. She will undoubtedly have to give up her sister’s
lodging. She has already had a similar experience. She was the mother’s
favorite, petted and fondled in every way. Her mother had a stroke of
paralysis and lost consciousness. After she came to herself, she clung
to the delusion that her favorite child had turned untrue to her and
began terribly to torture the poor child.[17] She reproached her with
occurrences wholly imaginary, scolded her as being cold, selfish and
indifferent. The girl could do nothing and finally had to leave the
house and go to live with strangers. She returned home only after the
death of the mother. Meanwhile the father had also passed away. The two
girls remained alone in the world and now only had each other. But
things were at sixes and sevens between them and they seldom had a quiet
hour between themselves.
At last the sister became actually abusive. She begged her sister “with
uplifted hands” to dismiss the lodger. She was willing to cover the room
rent out of her own pocket. She could not stand it any longer. She could
not sleep nights and was going physically and mentally to pieces. But
the sister became wild and started to scold her, using the same terrible
terms which she had heard her mother hurl at her. They rushed at each
other’s hair. She was so enraged she could have strangled her sister at
the time.
After that scene she came again to me in despair. I advised her to move
out. She cannot have everything her way and she must have quiet. But
what was her answer.
“That I cannot do. I cannot.”
“Why not? Does not your sister let you?”
“Oh no, it isn’t that ... only yesterday sister said to me: ‘Move out. I
will cherish the day when I will get rid of you.’”
“And you stand for that?”
“I cannot move out because....”
“You are in love with your sister and cannot live without her.”
“That’s it. I cannot live without sister and even her scoldings and her
angry words I will put up with rather than stand a day without seeing
her.”
“Still you will have to do it.... The conditions are unhealthy.”
“Yes.... Only yesterday I said to sister: ‘_I am going to move out and
you can keep your rooms and do with your lodger whatever you want. I
won’t protect you any more._’”
Thus it came out clearly that she was watching every night, whether the
lodger was going to the sister and that she dreaded moving out because
she knew that the sister would then be alone with the lodger in the
house and he could go to her every night. I made this clear to her but
she did not seem to see it at first. She admitted her homosexual love
for the sister....
She moved to other quarters. It was a quiet little room over a garden in
the home of an elderly woman living alone. But here also she could not
sleep. The old woman snored and she could not stand that. Then the
ticking of a clock disturbed her continually and kept her from falling
asleep, the striking of the hours even waking her up. She thus
continually sought everywhere for the reasons of her unrest which were
only in herself. The palpitation of her heart (symbolic substitute for
it: the clock) gave her no peace. She looked for other quarters, kept
looking and looking but found no place so satisfactory and quiet as the
sister’s lodging. She went there every evening returning to her outside
lodgings late in the night. She took advantage of a light illness of her
sister’s as an excuse and returned to her little room, again shivering
with dread whenever the lodger was late coming home. Even after she
chose for herself a lover who gave her complete sexual gratification her
quiet was temporary. The heterosexual component of her instincts drove
her more and more to her lover trying to forget her sister in his arms.
But she succeeded only intermittently and her thoughts kept revolving
again and again between her sister and that lodger. Finally her sister
gave in and the lodger had to move. An elderly young woman became the
new lodger. Then she quieted down and was able to sleep once more.
It is interesting that nearly all narcotic drugs not only proved useless
but made her worse. She did not want to sleep so as to keep watch over
her sister’s virtue.
As in all the cases previously mentioned, here, too, developments led to
overt attitudes, the subject stood on the brink of criminal passional
deeds. Hatred and love showed intimate relationships. She was also
afraid of murderers, barricaded the doors and shivered at every little
noise. That was the fear of her own criminal thoughts. Her infantile
criminal tendencies arose with her infantile love for the sister.
This case, like the former, illustrates the inner relations between
jealousy, homosexuality and sadism. For during her fits of anger she
entertained terrible thoughts of revenge. She thought of burning down
the home; of killing her sister, as well as herself, by turning on the
gas in the room; she tried to secure a revolver, supposedly as a
protection against thieves. Her dreams show a criminal personality in
sharp contrast to her customary mild character. Emotionally the criminal
in her was much more powerful than her cultural self, she could have
assaulted her sister and once actually drew a knife. After such
emotional outbreaks she crumpled and became again the quiet, soft girl,
beloved of everybody on account of her good nature.
IV
JEALOUSY AND PARANOIA—JEALOUSY AS PROJECTION OF ONE’S OWN
INADEQUACY—FREUD’S RESEARCHES ON PARANOIA—THE INVESTIGATIONS OF
JULIUSBURGER—THE JEALOUSY OF A PARANOIAC—JEALOUSY DELUSION OF A
MERCHANT—JEALOUSY AND ALCOHOLISM—THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND FROM
BISEXUALITY TO MONOSEXUALITY—METAMORPHOSIS SEXUALIS PARANOICA—THE
MONOTHEISM OF SEXUALITY—JEALOUSY AND CRIMINALITY.
_Die Eifersucht wird immer mit der Liebe geboren aber stirbt nicht immer
mit ihr._
—_La Rochefoucauld._
IV
_Jealousy always arises with love but does not always die out with it._
—_La Rochefoucauld._