Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/128

 by looking at the triviality as connected with the thing to be presented and as a result of it. For example:

A Jew who was riding in a train had made himself very comfortable; he had unbuttoned his coat, and had put his feet on the seat, when a fashionably dressed gentleman came in. The Jew immediately put on his best behavior and assumed a modest position. The stranger turned over the pages of a book, did some calculation, and pondered a moment and suddenly addressed the Jew. “I beg your pardon, how soon will we have Yom Kippur?” (Day of Atonement). “Oh, oh!” said the Jew, and put his feet back on the seat before he answered.

It cannot be denied that this representation through something minute is allied to the tendency of economy which we found to be the final common element in the investigation of the technique of word-wit.

The following example is much similar.

The doctor who had been summoned to help the baroness in her confinement declared that the critical moment had not arrived, and proposed to the baron that they play a game of cards in the adjoining room in the meantime. After a while the doleful cry of the baroness reached the ears of the men. “Ah, mon Dieu, que