“Why did you not wish to admit it to yourself? Were you ashamed because you loved a man?”—“O, no, I am not unreasonably prudish; one is certainly not responsible for one’s own feelings. I only felt chagrined because it was my employer in whose service I was and in whose house I lived, and toward whom I could not feel as independent as towards another. What is more, I am a poor girl and he is a rich man of a prominent family, and if anybody should have had any inkling about my feelings they would have ridiculed me.”
After this I encountered no resistances in elucidating the origin of this affection. She told me that the first years of her life in that house were passed uneventfully. She fulfilled her duties without thinking about unrealizable wishes. One day, however, the serious, and very busy and hitherto very reserved master, engaged her in conversation about the exigencies of rearing the children. He became milder and more cordial than usual, he told her how much he counted on her in the bringing up of his orphaned children, and looked at her rather peculiarly. It was in this moment that she began to love him, and gladly occupied herself with the pleasing hopes which she conceived during that conversation. However, as this was not followed by anything else, and despite her waiting and persevering no other confidential heart-to-heart talk followed, she decided to crowd it out of her mind. She quite agreed with me that the look in connection with the conversation was probably intended for the memory of his deceased wife. She was also perfectly convinced that her love was hopeless.
After this conversation I expected a decided change in her condition but for a time it did not take place. She continued depressed and moody—a course of hydrotherapy which I ordered for her at the same time refreshed her somewhat mornings. The odor of burned pastry did not entirely disappear; though it became rarer and feebler it appeared only, as she said, when she was very much excited.
The continuation of this memory symbol led me to believe that besides the principal scene it represented many smaller side traumas and I therefore investigated everything that might have been in any way connected with the scene of the burned pastry. We thus passed through the theme of family friction, the behavior of the grandfather and others, and with that the sensation of burned odor gradually disappeared. Just then there was a lengthy interruption occasioned by a new nasal affliction which led to the discovery of the caries of the ethmoid.
On her return she informed me that she received many Christmas presents from both gentlemen as well as from the household servants, as if they were trying to appease her and wipe away the recollection of the conflicts of the last months. These frank advances made no impression on her.
On questioning her on another occasion about the odor of burned pastry she stated that it had entirely disappeared, but instead she was now bothered by another and similar odor like the smoke of a cigar. This odor really existed before; it was only concealed by the odor of the pastry but now appeared by itself.
I was not very much pleased with the success of my treatment. What occurred here is what a mere symptomatic treatment is generally blamed for, namely, that it removes one symptom only to make room for another. Nevertheless, I immediately set forth to remove this new memory symbol by analysis.
This time I did not know whence this subjective sensation of smell originated, nor on what important occasion it was objective. On being questioned she said, “They constantly smoke at home, I really don’t know whether the smell which I feel has any particular significance.” I then proposed that she should try to recall things under the pressure of my hands. I have already mentioned that her recollections were plastically vivid, that she was a “visual.” Indeed under the pressure of my hands a picture came into her mind—at first only slowly and fragmentarily. It was the dining room of the house in which she waited with the children for the arrival of the gentlemen from the factory for dinner.—“Now we are all at the table, the gentlemen, the French maid, the housekeeper, the children and I. It is the same as usual.”—“Just keep on looking at that picture. It will soon become developed and specialized.”—“Yes, there is a guest, the chief accountant, an old gentleman who loves the children like his own grandchildren, but he dines with us so frequently that it is nothing unusual.”—“Just have patience, keep on looking at the picture, something will certainly happen.”—“Nothing happens. We leave the table, the children take leave and go with us up to the second floor as usual.”—“Well?”—“It really is something unusual, I now recognize the scene. As the children take leave the chief accountant attempts to kiss them, but my master jumps up and shouts at him, ‘Don’t kiss the children!’ I then experienced a stitch in the heart, and as the gentlemen were smoking, this odor remained in my memory.”
This, therefore, was the second, deeper seated scene causing the trauma and leaving the memory symbol. But why was this scene so effective? I then asked her which scene happened first, this one or the one with the burned pastry?—“The last scene happened first by almost two months.”—“Why did you feel the stitch at the father’s interference? The reproof was not meant for you.”—“It was really not right to rebuke an old gentleman in such manner who was a dear friend and a guest, it could have been said quietly.”—“Then you were really affected by your master’s impetuosity? Were you perhaps ashamed of him, or have you thought, ‘If he could become so impetuous to an old friend guest over such a trifle, how would he act towards me if I were his wife?’”—“No, that is not it.”—“But still it was about his impetuosity?”—“Yes, about the kissing of the children, he never liked that.” Under the pressure of my hands there emerged a still older scene which was the real effective trauma and which bestowed on the scene with the chief accountant the traumatic effectivity.
A few months before a lady friend visited the house and on leaving kissed both children on the lips. The father, who was present, controlled himself and said nothing to the lady, but when she left he was very angry at the unfortunate governess. He said that he held her responsible for this kissing; that it was her duty not to tolerate it; that she was neglecting her duties in allowing such things, and that if it ever happened again he would entrust the education of his children to some one else. This occurred while she believed herself loved and waited for a repetition of that serious and friendly talk. This episode shattered all her hopes. She thought: “If he can upbraid and threaten me on account of such a trifle, of which I am entirely innocent, I must have been mistaken, he never entertained any tenderer feelings towards me, else he would have been considerate.”—It was evidently this painful scene that came to her as the father reprimanded the chief accountant for attempting to kiss the children.