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What can one reasonably expect from the “memoirs” of the chambermaid in a great man's household? At best small talk, at worst big gossip. Although Detlef Berthelsen, the as-told-to author, could not avoid occasional touches of both, he has yet negotiated an extremely tricky path. His presentation of the life of Paula Fichtl, Stubenmaedchen to the Freud family in Vienna and housekeeper in London, turns out to be a genuine case history, shaped by basic concepts of a Greek tragedy: a totally primitive, totally loyal woman is propelled by fate into circumstances that she is totally unable to comprehend. This leads to an ever-growing inferiority complex for which she attempts to compensate with, as Anna Freud described it, ever-growing megalomania. It also triggered an obsession with meddling with everybody and everything, with “taking over” in complete ignorance of the circumstances, and with constantly “proving herself.” This culminated in the abysmal delusion that she could, and would, fill the void left by the death of Dorothy Burlingame, Anna Freud's lifelong friend and companion.
At this point, a peripheral question may be permitted: can the relation to a woman really be the resolution of a supremely fulfilled father complex? In this particular case it seems to have worked.
It was Dorothy Burlingame by the way (of the New York Tiffanys, a patient of Freud before she entered Anna Freud's life) who recommended Paula Fichtl, nanny of her children, to Martha Freud in July, 1929. Paula was happy in the Freud household. She was never interested in a life of her own or marriage, both of which she could have had. She adored the Master who, on his part, liked her uncomplicated simplicity as much as the fact that she dusted the innumerable antique statuettes on his desk without breaking them. Another of her duties was to admit the patients and make sure that none would run into another—all of which made her feel very important.
In this connection, some name dropping may be cond