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Some years ago I received a telegram from a fashionable winter resort, asking me to act as consultant in the case of a certain young Countess. The summons came as rather a surprise. Psycho-analysis, especially in those days, had not aroused any great interest in aristocratic circles, and in any case, although I was on friendly terms with the physician calling me in, he could scarcely be regarded as an enthusiastic supporter of our science.
The history of the case which was communicated to me on arrival soon solved the mystery. The young lady had broken her leg tobogganning, and whilst in a state of unconsciousness following the accident had screamed out the most obscene oaths and generally used foul language and invective of a quite outrageous kind; since then there had been a few seizures of the same type, and the family physician, concluding that this might well be 'a case of hysteria of the Freudian type', called me in to see her.
On the days following my arrival, I was able to take a kind of rough psycho-analytical history of the case. The patient was an attractive girl of nineteen. Her rather tende-hearted father had pampered her; her mother on the other hand, although attentive and affectionate, treated her a shade more strictly. She had already a strong transference to the doctor who about eight days before had put the limb in plaster; her attitude towards myself was much more reserved. Still, with the assistance of my colleague and of her parents I was able to piece together the following details. The patient had always behaved in a curious fashion; whenever possible she escaped from the private quarters of the Castle down to the servants' hall. Her special friend here was a nurse, whom since earliest childhood she had treated as a confidante. When