Women with fruit are standing on the platform; they crouch on the floor, and in that position hold out their baskets in an inviting manner. I hesitate, in doubt whether we still have time, but we are still standing. I am suddenly in another compartment in which the leather and the seats are so narrow that one's back directly touches the back rest.[1] I am surprised at this, but I may have changed cars while asleep. Several people, among them an English brother and sister; a row of books distinctly on a shelf on the wall. I see The Wealth of Nations, then Matter and Motion (by Maxwell)—the books are thick and bound in brown linen. The man asks his sister for a book by Schiller, and whether she has forgotten it. These are books which first seem mine, then seem to belong to the brother and sister. At this point I wish to join in the conversation in order to confirm and support what is being said. I awaken sweating all over my body, because all the windows are shut. The train stops at Marburg.
While writing down the dream, a part of it occurs to me which my memory wished to omit. I say to the brother and sister about a certain work: "It is from..." but I correct myself: "It is by..." The man remarks to his sister: "He said it correctly."
The dream begins with the name of a station, which probably must have partially awakened me. For this name, which was Marburg, I substituted Hollthurn. The fact that I heard Marburg when it was first called, or perhaps when it was called a second time, is proved by the mention in the dream of Schiller, who was born in Marburg, though not in the one in Styria.[2] Now this time, although I was travelling first-class, it was under very disagreeable circumstances. The train was overcrowded; I had met a gentleman and lady in my compartment who seemed persons of quality, but who did not have the good breeding or who did not think it worth
- ↑ This description is not intelligible even to myself, but I follow the principle of reproducing the dream in those words which occur to me while I am writing it down. The wording itself is a part of the dream representation.
- ↑ Schiller was not born in one of the Marburgs, but in Marbach, as every graduate of a Gymnasium knows, and as I also knew. This again is one of those errors (cf. p. 165) which are included as substitutes for an intended deception at another place—an explanation of which I have attempted in the Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens).
