death."[1] Thus the women are really Parcæ whom I visit in the kitchen, as I have done so often in my childhood years when I was hungry, and when my mother used to order me to wait until lunch was ready. And now for the dumplings! At least one of my teachers at the University, the very one to whom I am indebted for my histological knowledge (epidermis), might be reminded by the name Knoedl (German, Knoedel = dumplings) of a person whom he had to prosecute for committing a plagiarism of his writings. To commit plagiarism, to appropriate anything one can get, even though it belongs to another, obviously leads to the second part of the dream, in which I am treated like a certain overcoat thief, who for a time plied his trade in the auditoria. I wrote down the expression plagiarism—without any reason—because it presented itself to me, and now I perceive that it must belong to the latent dream-content, because it will serve as a bridge between different parts of the manifest dream-content. The chain of associations—Pélagie—plagiarism—plagiostomi[2] (sharks)—fish bladder—connects the old novel with the affair of Knoedl and with the overcoats (German, Überzieher = thing drawn over—overcoat or condom), which obviously refer to an object belonging to the technique of sexual life.[3] This, it is true, is a very forced and irrational connection, but it is nevertheless one which I could not establish in waking life if it had not been already established by the activity of the dream. Indeed, as though nothing were sacred for this impulse to force connections, the beloved name, Bruecke (bridge of words, see above), now serves to remind me of the institution in which I spent my happiest hours as a student, quite without any cares ("So you will ever find more pleasure at the breasts of knowledge without measure"), in the most complete contrast to the urgent desires which vex me while I dream. And finally there comes to the surface the recollection of another dear teacher, whose name again sounds like
- ↑ Both the emotions which belong to these childish scenes—astonishment and resignation to the inevitable—had appeared in a dream shortly before, which was the first thing that brought back the memory of this childhood experience.
- ↑ I do not elaborate plagiostomi purposely; they recall an occasion of angry disgrace before the same teacher.
- ↑ Cf. Maury's dream about kilo-lotto, p. 50.
