Page:Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (1916).djvu/171

 from many unconscious processes, as though it were following psychoanalytic principles.) It was for this reason that Anna came to the apparently absurd conclusion that her father wanted to drown her. At the same time her fear contained the thought that the object of the father had some relation to a dangerous action. This stream of thought is no arbitrary interpretation. Anna meanwhile grew a little older and her interest in her father took on a special colouring which is hard to describe. Language has no words to describe the quite unique kind of tender curiosity which shone in the child’s eyes.

Anna once took marked delight in assisting the gardener while he was sowing grass, without apparently divulging the profound significance of her play. About a fortnight later she began to observe with great pleasure the young grass sprouting. On one of these occasions she asked her mother the following question: “Tell me, how did the eyes grow into the head?” The mother told her that she did not know. Anna, however, continued to ask whether God or her papa could tell this? The mother then referred her to her father, who might tell her how the eyes grew into the head. A few days later there was a family reunion at tea. When the guests had departed, the father remained at the table reading the paper and Anna also remained. Suddenly approaching her father she said, “Tell me, how did the eyes grow into the head?”

Father: “They did not grow into the head; they were there from the beginning and grew with the head.”

A.: “Were not the eyes planted?”

F.: “No, they grew in the head like the nose.”

A.: “Did the mouth and the ears grow in the same way? and the hair, too?”

F.: “Yes, they all grew in the same way.”

A.: “And the hair, too? But the mousies came into the world naked. Where was the hair before? Aren’t there little seeds for it?”

F.: “No; you see, the hair really came out of little grains which are like seeds, but these were already in the skin long