Page:Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (1916).djvu/184

 warm affection for this woman and divided with her the little he possessed. She brought him her troubles, and said she felt sure she would die in childbed. Then he promised her (he who possessed nothing) to take charge of the children himself and bring them up. The wife did die in childbed. The orphanage-board interfered, however, and allowed him only one child. So he had a child but no family, and naturally could not bring it up by himself. He thus came to think of marrying. But as he had never been in love with any woman he was in great perplexity. It then occurred to him that his elder brother was divorced from his wife, and he resolved to marry her. He wrote his intention to her in Paris. She was seventeen years older than he, but not disinclined to the plan. She invited him to come to Paris to talk matters over. On the eve of this journey fate, however, willed that he should run a big iron nail into his foot so that he could not travel. After a little while, when the wound was healed, he went to Paris, and found that he had imagined his sister-in-law, and now his fiancee, to be younger and prettier than she really was. The wedding took place, and three months later the first coitus, at his wife’s initiative. He himself had no desire for it. They brought up the child together, he in the Swiss and she in the French way, for she was a French woman. At the age of nine the child was run over and killed by a cyclist. The patient then felt very lonely and dismal at home. He proposed to his wife that she should adopt a young girl, whereupon she broke out into a fury of jealousy. Then for the first time he fell in love with a young girl, whilst at the same time the neurosis started, with deep depression and nervous exhaustion, for meanwhile his life at home had become a hell.

My proposition to separate from his wife was refused out of hand, because he could not take upon himself to make the old woman unhappy on his account. He clearly prefers to be tormented still further; for it would seem that the recollection of his youth is more precious to him than any present joys.