children; this is positively untrue, she can never be deceived on this point. Accordingly, papa and mama and all the others lie. This readily explains her suspicion at the childbirth and her discrediting of her mother. But it also explains another point, namely, the elegiac reveries which we have attributed to a partial introversion. We know now what was the real object from which love was removed and uselessly introverted, namely, it had to be taken from the parents who deceived her and refused to tell her the truth. (What can this be which must not be uttered? What is going on here?) Such were the parenthetic questions of the child, and the answer was: Evidently this must be something to be concealed, perhaps something dangerous. Attempts to make her talk and to draw out the truth by means of artful questions were futile, so resistance is placed against resistance, and the introversion of love begins. It is evident that the capacity for sublimation in a four-year-old child is still too slightly developed to be capable of performing more than symptomatic services. The mind, therefore, depends on another compensation, namely, it resorts to one of the relinquished infantile devices for securing love by force, preferably that of crying and calling the mother at night. This had been diligently practised and exhausted during her first year. It now returns, and corresponding to the period of life has become well determined and equipped with recent impressions. It was just after the earthquakes in Messina, and this event was discussed at the table. Anna was extremely interested in everything, she repeatedly asked her grandmother to tell her how the earth shook, how the houses fell in and many people lost their lives. After this she had nocturnal fears, she could not be alone, her mother had to go to her and stay with her; otherwise she feared that an earthquake would happen, that the house would fall and kill her. During the day, too, she was much occupied with such thoughts. While walking with her mother she annoyed her with such questions as, “Will the house be standing when we return home? Are you sure there is no earthquake at home? Will papa still be living?” About every stone lying in the road she asked whether it was from an earthquake. A
