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pulsion; "playing" is the very word used in the nursery for the activity
of the hands in masturbation. The irresistibility of the temptation,
the solemn, never kept, resolutions never to do it, the soothing pleasure,
and the bad conscience which tells him that he is ruining himself
(suicide), remain unaltered in the substitution. Zweig's story is told
from the point of view of the mother, not of the son. The son may
cajole himself by thinking:
if
my mother knew what dangers onanism
may involve me in, she would certainly save me by permitting me to
lavish my tenderness on her own body. The identification of the mo–
ther with the prostitute made by the young man in the story belongs
to the same phantasy. It brings the unattainable within easy reach.
The bad conscience which accompanies this phantasy entails the un–
happy ending of the story. It is also interesting to note how the external
circumstances employed by the author in the story try to conceal its
analytic meaning. For it is extremely questionable whether the love
life of woman is controlled by sudden and mysterious impulses.
Analysis rather goes to show that there is adequate motivation for
the surprising behaviour of a woman who has hitherto rejected love.
Faithful to the memory of her dead husband, she has armed herself
against all similar claims, but-and here the phantasy of the son is
right-she, as mother, has not escaped transference of love to the son,
of which she is entirely unconscious, and fate is able to capture her at
this undefended spot.
If
the gambling habit, with its unsuccessful struggles to break
oneself from it and its opportunities for self-punishment, is a repetition
of the onanism compulsion, we shall not be surprised that it gained
such a firm place in Dostoevski's life. We find no case of serious
neurosis in which the autoerotic satisfaction of immaturity and
puberty does not play its part, and the relations between the effort to
suppress it and the fear of the father are so well known that they
need only be mentioned:
1
·
(Translated
by
D. F. Tait)
1 Most of the views here expressed are also contained in the excellent
book of Solan Neufeld, published in 1923,
Dostojewski, Ski:r.:r.e zu seiner Psycho–
'
analyse.
