3 : Reich’s Childhood and Youth: 1897-1917 49
unsteady look, then I knew that it had happened, whether for the first time I natu-
rally could not decide. Crying to myself as I stood in the corner, shielded by a
screen, I waited to surprise my mother, but that did not happen, to the unhappiness
of all of us. For I am convinced that my surprising her right after the deed would
have brought my mother to her senses and even at that late date, would have saved
the marriage of mother and father. That was the only possible hope.
What held me back at the time, I am not able to say, but at the same
moment there arose in me both sympathy with my father and the desire to leave
with my lips sealed. (I was about twelve years of age.)
Shortly after Christmas father went away for three weeks and I experi-
enced the most horrible, the most upsetting events, which burned themselves
deeply into my feelings and thoughts.
Mother slept, as always during father’s absence, in the last bedroom on the
corridor. After that came our room, then the dining room, and then his [ISPs]
room. Right on the first night (I was so tense I had not closed my eyes) I heard my
mother get up and the horror grabs me by the throat! heard her slippered walk and
saw her, clad only in a nightgown, pass through our room. Soon I heard the door
ofhis room open and not completely shut.And then quiet.
I sprang up from my bed and followed, shivering, my teeth chattering from
anxiety, horror and cold; I moved right up to the door, which was only partly
closed, and listened. Oh horrible memory, which tears my remembrance of my
mother to dust, her memory always besmirched anew with dirt and muck! Must I
then say everything? The pen bristles, no, my ego, my whole being is against it, and
yet I will and must write on.
I heard kisses, whispers, the frightening noise of the bed, and on it lay my
mother. And a few yards away stood your son and heard your shame. Suddenly
quiet.I had evidently made a noise in my excitement, for I heard calming words
from him and then, then again, oh! (The last sentence, especially the last words,
written apparently in the highest excitement,with heavy strokes of the pen.)
Only quiet,quiet toward this nerve-shattering tragedy, in order to accom-
plish the superhuman! To judge objectively! What a mockery! What a resolution!
From that catastrophic night I remember only that my wish at first was to
plunge into the room but I was held back by the thought: they will kill you!
I had read somewhere that lovers get rid of any intruder, so with wild fan-
tasies in my brain I slipped back to my bed, my joy of life shattered, torn apart in
my inmost being for my whole life!
So it went, night after night; always I slipped back and waited till morning.
Gradually I became used to it! The horror disappeared and erotic feelings won the
upper hand.And then the thought came to me to plunge into the room, and to have intercourse
with my mother with the threat that ifshe didn’t I would tell my father.
For my part, I went regularly to the chambermaid^12.