THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER
that makes, as you say, efforts, and usually makes them, by the way, with the sole idea of putting up a good show before the neighbours, then the real self takes its revenge.
Frank : How?
Doctor : I’ll tell you. Into the model villa of behaviour that the superficial self has erected it sends an obsession. Often enough you’ll find that obsession doesn’t seem to bear any relation to the suppressed wish at all. That’s because the superficial self’s not candid . . . gives it a twist. You know . . . a man who really wants to leave his wife develops a hatred for pickled cabbage which may find vent in performances that lead straight to the asylum. But that’s all technical—my business to understand it, not yours.
Frank : It’s extremely interesting.
Doctor : That’s as may be.
Frank : I don’t know that I quite follow you, but . . .
Doctor : My dear man, it doesn’t matter two straws whether you do or whether you don’t. The point is, Captain Baldry’s obsession—that he can’t remember the latter years of his life. Well—what’s the suppressed wish of which it’s the manifestation?
Frank : You said the obsession may have no relation to the wish.
Doctor (impatiently): I said “may seem to
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