He begins—spontaneously—an account of his life with his first recollections:
I was 2 years of age and we—a number of children—played out of doors. A pretty lady walked up and threw a ball into the grass. She said: He who catches the ball may keep it. I was nearest to it but did not dare to trespass upon the finely kept lawn. Therefore another one caught the ball....
This recollection seems typical of Sigma. Like all first recollections it contains the determinants of his whole life.[[34]] It shows us a man who lacks self-confidence, whose activity is inhibited by considerations regarding others. He explains that for the sake of his mother he has renounced all pleasures in life. He is always hesitant (kleinmütig), overwhelmed by his feeling of inferiority and dares not assume any important enterprise.
His sexuality awoke very early. He played always with girls and felt more like a girl. He liked to put on his mother’s hat and clothing. His mother was the master in the house, the breadwinner and law giver. The father always played a subordinate rôle. We see again a reiteration of the fact that the child identifies itself with the stronger parent. Under the circumstances it was natural that Sigma should identify himself with the mother....
Already, in the public school, at seven years of age, he fell in love with his teacher. That is why he became one of the best scholars. He also loved some of his colleagues, but was too bashful to betray himself to them. At 12 years of age he began to masturbate and during the act his fancies were centered on the image of a naked man. He was very religious up till that time and during confession distinguished himself by the lengthy list of his sins and the depth of his dejection. At 12 years of age he became free and progressively developed into a full-fledged atheist. The struggle against masturbation began at 14 years of age, when he heard that the habit was very harmful. After that he indulged more rarely. Great feeling of fatigue on day after pollution. The subject regards his present condition a consequence of his masturbation habit.
Already during his gymnasium years (high school) his mind was distracted and he barely managed to squeeze through his finals (Matura). He was always bashful and avoided the colleagues who spoke cynically among themselves about girls so that he was called “Miss Sigma.” For a few years he lived away from home. They lived formerly in the country and he had to stay in Copenhagen. He lived with some older sisters with whom he did not get along very well. He played music with them, joined them on walks, experienced considerable excitation ... short of erotism. His whole erotic feeling was directed only to men and boys. In the course of his endless day dream fancies he never thought of a woman at any time in his life. He dreams only of men and thinks only of them. That concludes the first visit.
Sigma again emphasizes his one-sided inclination towards men. Nevertheless he must correct a small detail of his account as given on the previous day. This, I repeat, is a common typical occurrence in the anamnesis of homosexuals. When giving an account of their life they neglect entirely all the heterosexual episodes. But today Sigma adds that occasionally he did have erotic dreams concerning women; perhaps four or five times. But not more often than that. These dreams led to pollutions and were rather indefinite as to content. Sigma was also in love, transiently, with a girl cousin, at sixteen years of age. He at once attempts to weaken the force of this declaration: it was merely a pastime, a pose, because an uncle was in love with the same girl. He thought it was his duty also to make love to this girl cousin. But it was soon over. And he must emphasize again that he never indulged in any phantasies centering on women. He had such phantasies. But they were always about men.
He was brought up almost wholly in female society. If his mother was away, there was an aunt in the house who looked after him. He was taken to school and was called for when he was already a grown-up boy—the typical training for dependence. His mother wanted to procure friends for him. There were always some boys whom she wished he would accept as his friends. But usually he himself found nothing in those particular boys to interest him. If he himself chose some boy for a friend his mother was sure to interpose her veto as soon as their friendship became too warm. And he was always prone to fall in love with his friends. He composed poetry at a very early age, deifying his friends; to this day his poems are devoted almost wholly to Eros Uranos.
At this point he reflects for a while; and he continues: “I identified myself always with the female figures who were mostly strong, aggressive women. I could always enthuse over such strong, energetic women displaying male aggressiveness about them. If a woman or a girl ever interested me and played a rôle in my day dreams, she was of this type.” Next he recalls a heterosexual episode. He admired for a time the landlady’s daughter, kept company with her, they played music together, but he felt very unhappy when she married off afterwards.
The Eulenberg trial made him aware of his own homosexuality. That made him very unhappy for he discovered that he was unlike others. In the high school he was always looked upon as peculiar and he kept aloof from his schoolmates. The famous trial made it clear to him that his end would be either insanity or jail. He went through some dreadful days. He was in love with a friend and when the latter asked him why he was so depressed, he broke into bitter tears and poured out his heart circuitously describing his passion. He felt that he was not like others, he felt lonely and closed in, unrecognized and weak. His friend advised him to devote himself more to art. He looked upon the subject’s suffering as due to thwarted ambition.