Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/364

 to the cases considered above, or the wit originates by comparison with perfect wit. Nothing prevents us from assuming that we here deal with a union of both modes of origin of the comic pleasure. It is not to be denied that it is precisely the inadequate dependence on wit which here shapes the nonsense into comic nonsense.

Comic of Inadequacy

There are, of course, other quite apparent cases, in which such inadequacy produced by the comparison with wit, makes the nonsense irresistibly comic. The counterpart to wit, the riddle, can perhaps give us better examples for this than wit itself. A facetious question states: What is this: It hangs on the wall and one can dry his hands on it? It would be a foolish riddle if the answer were: a towel. On the contrary this answer is rejected with the statement: No, it is a herring,—“But, for mercy’s sake,” is the objection, “a herring does not hang on the wall.”—“But you can hang it there,”—“But who wants to dry his hands on a herring?”—“Well,” is the soft answer, “you don’t have to.” This explanation given through two typical displacements show how much this question lacks of being a real