Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/269

 manner of questioning is typical, and evidently corresponds with the child’s hazy grasp of the problem, unless we assume a certain diplomatic uncertainty prompted by a desire to evade direct questioning. We shall later find an illustration of this possibility. Anna is evidently confronted with the question “where does the child come from?” The stork did not bring it; mother did not die; nor did mother get it in the same way as the nurse. She has, however, asked this question before and received the information from her father that the stork brings children; this is positively untrue, she can never be deceived on this point. Accordingly, papa and mama and all the others lie. This readily explains her suspicion at the childbirth and her discrediting of her mother. But it also explains another point, namely, the elegiac reveries which we have attributed to a partial introversion. We know now from what real object love had to be taken and introverted to no purpose, namely, it had to be taken from the parents who deceived her and refused to tell her the truth. (What must this be which cannot be uttered? What is going on here?) Such were the parenthetic questions of the child, and the answer was: Evidently this must be something to be concealed, perhaps something dangerous. Attempts to make her talk and to draw out the truth by means of (insidious) questions were futile, she exerted resistance against resistance, and the introversion of love began. It is evident that the capacity for sublimation in a 4-year-old child is still too slightly developed to be capable of performing more than symptomatic services. The mind, therefore, depends on another compensation, namely, it resorts to one of the relinquished infantile devices for securing love by force, the most preferred is that of crying and calling the mother at night. This has been diligently practised and exhausted during her first year. It now returns and corresponding to the period of life it has become well determined and equipped with recent impressions. It was just after the earthquakes in Messina, and this event was discussed at the table. Anna was extremely interested in everything, she repeatedly asked her grandma to relate to her how the earth shook, how the houses were demolished and many people lost their lives. After this she had nocturnal fears, she could not remain alone, her mother was forced to go to her and stay with her; otherwise she feared that an earthquake would appear, that the house would fall and kill her. During the day, too, she was much occupied with such thoughts. While walking with her mother she annoyed her with such questions as, “Will the house be standing when we return home? Are you sure there is no earthquake at home? Will papa still be living?” About every stone lying in the road she asked whether it was from an