The first dream is as follows:
A cat bit me on the left index finger and held on to it for some time. The finger swelled and burst down to the bone. The tendon was broken and a great deal of fluid was oozing out. It meant I shall always have a stiff finger. I said to myself: “What a pity! Now I won’t be able ever to play the piano again.”
I woke up and found my finger so fast asleep that I could not move it.
Just before the dream the girl in her despair had offered a fervent prayer which made her feel a little easier. Before the analysis the girl was extremely restless and longed for her beloved, but she said to herself that she would only bring misfortune upon that poor girl’s head.
The analysis of this dream, which Pfister unfortunately, did not carry out with complete success, shows that her whole emotional life is governed by the infantile experience with that housekeeper. The first recollection brought up by the free associations with this dream relate to the housekeeper, who in the dream is represented by the cat.
I have discussed elsewhere in a lengthy contribution, the Representation of the Neurosis in Dreams.[44] In this dream the trouble is symbolized by a stiff finger. “Playing the piano” is again a symbol for sexual intercourse as well as for masturbation. Probably the symbol here has acquired its emotional coloring from the masturbation habit. But the heterosexual meaning is also obvious (piano playing—coitus). If we interpret the dream we have:
The housekeeper, that false cat who played a dependent rôle towards my parents, made me ill with her long-continued tendernesses (A cat bit me on the left index finger and held on for a long time). The trouble grew worse, something valuable tore in me (the ability to love a man) and the homosexual form of love established itself permanently (stiffening). Now I am incapable of loving a man, I cannot be a mother or raise a family of my own,—a wish that has already cost me so many tears (the water flowing out of the wound).
Perhaps this interpretation will be doubted as something artificial and rather forced. But the subject recalls further details of the dream and relates them subsequently. Such additions are of extraordinary significance because usually they contain the censured, the repressed material. She recalls that the cat was going to bite her at first on the foot (significant because of the proximity of the sexual parts). Further on she relates a continuation of the dream: