His homosexuality shows itself in the choice of his love objectives. Usually he seduces the sisters of those of his friends whom he likes in particular. I know no affair of his in which some man did not play a rôle. When a man did not figure at the beginning he was brought in later, so as to complete the constellation necessary for the rousing of his libidinous craving. Very characteristic is the following episode, among the others of the last few years:
He became acquainted at a sanitarium with a young woman who soon became his sweetheart. One of his most intimate friends was also at that sanitarium. He asked his friend to try his luck with the lady because he wanted to test her faithfulness. The friend hesitated. He was afraid of a misunderstanding and the woman was not worth that to him. Then our subject tried to bring him and his sweetheart together in another way. He wagered a large sum of money that he could not get at the girl. His friend accepted the wager, and three days later proved that he had won the bet. O. L. wanted to hear every detail about the seduction and became so enraged that he could have killed his friend. Then that friend seduced again another sweetheart of his, a few months later he attacked him on the street and would have beaten him up if a few colleagues had not restrained him.
Now here in Vienna he is convinced that “that d—— fellow” will seduce also his present sweetheart, a girl whom he truly loves. But if so, he will find the fellow and kill him as well as the girl. The woman has a brother who plays an important rôle in the psychogenesis of this love. Once the woman told him how devotedly she loved her brother. She could understand how a sister may give herself to a brother. Now he urged the woman to give herself to the brother, setting up but one condition: he should witness the act. This phantasy assumed compulsive strength. On every occasion he tortured her, insisting that she ought to grant him the wish, and he kept calling in the brother when she did not want him. Once they were alone. He broke his word and they drank merrily. He got very drunk and made a passionate love declaration to his sweetheart’s brother, begging him to accompany him to the house and take the sister’s place.
His mother died when he was 15 years of age. The father engaged a young woman to take care of the house and he fell in love with her. At the same time he also hated her, fearing that his father would disinherit him in favor of this woman. He even planned to put the woman out of the way with poison. Wholly unconscious and most deeply repressed is his love for the father, whom he worries and to whom he causes no end of trouble. He was at the threshold of a wonderful career, all teachers had prophesied that he would be some day one of the world’s greatest violinists. His first concert was an unprecedented success. Then his neurosis broke out and now he is through with his career. Done with it and with life.
Back of the neurosis the motive of which is to worry the old father, to irritate him and force him to pay attention to the unsuccessful son, stands hidden his passionate love of the father, though he writes him scolding letters, 20 sheets long, and threatens to shoot him, should he dare cut down his rightful inheritance. A certain memory trace leads to various childhood fancies resembling the affairs with boys already mentioned. Finally he brings forth a reminiscence placing his father in an unpleasant light. The father was also a drinker....
It seems as if he had tried to forget that fact. His fancies of murder are directed against the father. That becomes clearer all the time. He turns ill and addicted to veronal so as to commit no crime. He feels his father slights and neglects him. They quarrel all the time on account of his dissipations. The father threatens he will be no longer responsible for his debts. The son must give up his expensive habits of living. Then the war broke out. He was among the first volunteers to answer the call, distinguished himself several times with his conduct, and finally met his death in an engagement.
I have already pointed out elsewhere in this work the latent homosexuality of drinkers. In the light of these new considerations, the well-known jealousy of drinkers reveals an additional feature. The intoxication is to a certain extent a periodic artificial paranoia during which the ideas of persecution come to the foreground. This is very clearly to be seen in many cases. In that particular respect the alcohol addict is hardly different from the paranoiac. Both believe in the objectivity of their insane notions.
The following two case histories of drinkers’ jealousy will conclude this lengthy list of illustrative cases:
80. Mr. N. V., Captain, married at the age of 34 and has been married two years. His marriage was unhappy from the very first day. Previous to that he had had intercourse only with puellæ publicæ and with them was always potent. With his wife he is impotent. He is very unhappy over it and consoles himself with street women. He began to drink and beats his wife while intoxicated. He scolds her, calls her a whore and accuses her of intimacy with all the officers. Although he had been drinking formerly, he did so with moderation, but now he is a confirmed potator, spends his time in dram shops and while intoxicated becomes very friendly with the waiters and other underlings, kissing them and toasting their comradeship. He is firmly convinced that his wife is unfaithful to him and even suspects his boy whom he beats mercilessly when under the influence of drink.
The woman left her husband and fled to her parents.