The conflict of affects raised this moment to a trauma and the sensation of smell which was connected with it remained as a symbol of it. The sense of smell is rarely made use of as a symbol, but in this case we know that she suffered from a chronic nasal affection and just then she suffered from severe coryza and could hardly smell anything; in her excitement, however, she perceived the odor of burned pastry.
As plausible as this sounded there was still something lacking. Freud asked himself why this conflict of affects should have led to hysteria, why did it not remain on a normal psychological basis; in other words, what justified this conversion? Previous experience showed that in all newly acquired hysterias one psychological determination is invariable, namely, that some presentation must intentionally be repressed from consciousness and excluded from psychical collaboration.
"In this intentional repression I also noticed the reason for the conversion of the sum of excitement, be it partial or total. The sum of excitation which cannot enter the psychic association thus finds the way to bodily innervation. The reason for the repression can only be a painful feeling. The repressed idea was incompatible with the ego. The repressed presentation avenges itself by becoming pathogenic."
From this he concluded that in the moment of hysterical conversion there must have been one trauma which she intentionally left in darkness. There was only one interpretation. He then told her that he believed that besides her attachment for the children she also loved her employer. Hesitatingly she answered, "Yes, I believe it is true." Asked why she did not mention this before she said, "Why, I didn't know it, or rather I did not wish to know it; I wanted to crowd it out of my head, never to think of it, and of late I was successful." After this admission all resistance was broken. She then related that during the first few years of her service she entertained no such wishes until one day when her master, a rather reserved and very busy man, talked confidentially with her concerning the rearing of the children. He was then more cordial than usual. He said that he counted on her to bring up his orphaned children and looked at her rather peculiarly. It was at this moment that she began to love him and entertain pleasant hopes. But, as this was not
