The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel - The Life Story of a Pioneer Psychoanalyst. Wilhelm Stekel

      One day I was taken to the shoemaker, Mueller, and articled to him as an apprentice. The master was a kind and witty man.

      This life was to my taste. To loaf around, to listen to the talks of the grownups, to have no school, no coaching, no lessons; it seemed to me like life in a fairy tale. My first disappointment was the so-called “second breakfast” at which each person received a liqueur glass of schnapps and a piece of black bread. I could not stand the schnapps, and the bread was hard and tasted bitter. I hurried home to ask for bread and butter. Mother was not in the kitchen, but I saw a row of warm, fragrant loaves of white bread on the table. Mother had baked them. This was an art of which she was rightly proud. I seized one of the loaves, took it back to my master, and said, “With greetings from my mother! Half of this loaf is for you, half for me.” The master enjoyed it very much and I overcame my first disappointment—and then came another.

      There were three of us apprentices at Mueller’s. We ran errands and were supposed to take turns in bringing repaired shoes to their owners. I was told that the apprentice who did this work received a few pennies as a tip. I greedily awaited my turn, but imagine my chagrin when they ignored me and sent another apprentice to deliver the new shoes. The other boy would get the tip I had anticipated receiving. I felt the injustice bitterly and ran away. I told my mother firmly that a hundred wild horses would not drag me back to the shoemaker.

      That was the only time I ever received a good hiding from my father. My mother, whose pet child I was in spite of my bad behavior, stopped the hiding. I promised to improve at school. I had to repeat the class I had left. At the end of the school year my marks were above average.

      My later school years were negotiated with ease. At the end of three years I had become one of the best pupils. I was fond of my parents, but was not attached to them. I had many playmates and was decidedly extroverted.

      MY FAMILY

      Now is the time to speak about my family. My father was a slim, well-built man whose fundamental characteristics were kindness, honesty, and a longing for knowledge. He liked jokes, was merry, good-hearted, and benevolent. His pride was that he had acted all his life according to the proprieties and the law. Thoroughly honest himself, he misplaced confidence in others, and many times he was cheated by his partners and friends. Shortly before his death he said to me, “I can’t leave you money but I can leave you something that is more than money, my honest name. I have never trespassed. I am proud that I have never been called to court either as a plaintiff or as a defendant.” When he married my mother he was an illiterate man. He was an orthodox Jew. My mother made him free from all prejudices, and Father tried to acquire knowledge in every way possible. His favorite books were history books, and many times he remarked what a wonderful book Graetz’s History of the Jews was. Later he became a freethinker and a strongly ethical individual. I may have inherited from him much of the good in my temperament, my benevolence, and my contempt for money. Mother called him a spendthrift.

      Later I learned that my mother was his second wife. His first marriage was unhappy. He was all the fonder, therefore, of my mother who, incidentally, was a charming and pretty woman.

      His emancipation advanced speedily. He read the best modern books with Mother, dropped his old ways, and even outstripped her, for he had a good literary taste, something which she lacked. His morals were strict, his sense of honor was beyond reproach, but he was as credulous as a child. His kindliness was such that we children never had a harsh word from him.

      My mother had one peculiar quality. She detested servants, without exception, declaring that they were our salaried enemies. She was somewhat miserly, and this had its effect upon the domestics. The result was that our servants seldom stayed long.

      Mother was in one respect like father; she came from a plain, narrowly-educated family, and early in life she hungered for knowledge. As a girl she had to hide in the garret to read Schiller because it was forbidden to read anything except Holy Scriptures. She liked philosophical books. Indeed, she enjoyed any book. Once when I was walking with her, a locksmith, laden with chains, passed by. “You see,” she said, “they are using chains to bar the harbor. Now the fugitive is trapped.”

      “What do you mean?” I queried.

      “Oh . . . I’m sorry,” she apologized, “my mind is in the novel I’ve been reading.” She could not tolerate life without a book. In her spare time she sat in a corner where she simultaneously knitted socks and read. Her educational method was marvelous. Without having read anything on the subject, she found the right way. When I was naughty, she never threatened that God would punish me. Religion was not mentioned but she always spoke of the high values of ethics. Once I asked my mother, “Are there devils?”

      “Wicked people are devils,” she answered. “Do right, and you will have nothing to fear.” Many times she preached to me, “Money doesn’t count in life. You can lose it. But no one can deprive you of your knowledge.” I was seventy years old when through the Anschluss I lost my home, my savings, my medical and musical instruments, my music, part of my library, but I could take this knowledge with me to London and create a new existence. As far as money was concerned, I was always the loser. I have lost my savings five times. But I never felt these losses deeply.

      I remember an episode from a later period of my boyhood. Father had secured a position abroad and regularly sent a small sum home. Thus, thanks to the economy of my mother, we could live modestly without fear of starvation.

      Every child is a little spy. I got to know that my father had an affair abroad with his landlady. Father came home for a holiday. He knew that my mother was aware of his adventure. He expected reproaches, but nothing happened. Then Mother, while cleaning his trunk, found a present he had purchased for his “other woman.” She upbraided him, not because he had had an affair, but because of the expense. She knew that father loved only her. Even as an old woman she was still receiving love letters from him. Reading these letters she would smile happily and say, “The old fool.”

      Although she was economical, she was a spendthrift on education. My sister, a gifted pianist, had the best and most expensive teachers. I was advised to take piano lessons from my sister and Mother gave me two kreutzers for each lesson, otherwise I would never have learned to play. How thankful I am to my mother for this little premium! From the pedagogical aspect it was superior to coercion. I wanted to learn to skate. Mother gave me the tuition money and she was equally generous when I wanted to learn to swim. My sister and her friends spoke French. “Learn French,” said my mother, “then you will understand what the girls are gossiping about.”

      I was always acutely hungry. I was never forced to eat, and for that I am grateful to Mother. I have never lost my appetite; on the other hand, I never became gluttonous.

      Mother’s simple philosophical formulas were the guides of my life. “Never repent having to renounce pleasure,” she once said. Then she told me the story of a man who had a ticket for a pleasure trip by boat, but was prevented by urgent business from taking the trip. The boat sank and many persons drowned.

      Mother was a wonderful woman. I dedicated my best book, A Primer for Mothers, to her.

      She instinctively recognized what I learned after many years of psychiatric experience; the value of training by love. This kind of education automatically reduces hatred. It is a mistake to introduce hatred into school education as was done for patriotic reasons in France after World War I. French children were taught “not to forget.” To be able to forget and to forgive is a prerogative of noble souls. We see how often the punishment children receive from parents is not forgotten or forgiven. The task of the psychiatrist is to reduce the power of inner hatreds and aggressions. He must show the individual who cannot forgive his parents how often the parents themselves are unhappy people who project their personal woes into their children. I often quote the following touching scene from Dostoyevsky’s life. A stranger on the street slapped his face. The poet looked up to him with deep sympathy and said, “How unhappy you must be if you can hit a stranger.”

      Training through