Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/413

Rh of which the first is superficial, while the second becomes, as it were, the interpreter of the first.

The dream—it is the only one for which I have no careful notes—is about to this effect: The dreamer—an unmarried young man—is sitting in an inn, which is seen correctly; several persons come to get him, among them someone who wants to arrest him. He says to his table companions, "I will pay later, I am coming back." But they call to him, laughing scornfully: "We know all about that; that's what everybody says." One guest calls after him: "There goes another one." He is then led to a narrow hall, where he finds a woman with a child in her arms. One of his escorts says: "That is Mr. Müller." A commissioner or some other official is running through a bundle of tickets or papers repeating Müller, Müller, Müller. At last the commissioner asks him a question, which he answers with "Yes." He then takes a look at the woman, and notices that she has grown a large beard.

The two component parts are here easily separated. What is superficial is the phantasy of being arrested; it seems to be newly created by the dreamwork. But behind it appears the phantasy of marriage, and this material, on the contrary, has undergone but slight change at the hands of the dream activity. The features which are common to both phantasies come into distinct prominence as in a Galton's composite photograph. The promise of the bachelor to come back to his place at the club table, the scepticism of the drinking companions, sophisticated in their many experiences, the calling after: "There goes (marries) another one,"—all these features can easily be capable of the other interpretation. Likewise the affirmative answer given to the official. Running through the bundle of papers with the repetition of the name,