certain plant. The book lies before me, I am just turning over a folded coloured plate. A dried specimen of the plant is bound with every copy, as though from a herbarium.
Analysis.—In the forenoon I saw in the show-window of a book store a book entitled, The Genus Cyclamen, apparently a monograph on this plant.
The cyclamen is the favourite flower of my wife. I reproach myself for so seldom thinking to bring her flowers, as she wishes. In connection with the theme "bringing flowers," I am reminded of a story which I recently told in a circle of friends to prove my assertion that forgetting is very often the purpose of the unconscious, and that in any case it warrants a conclusion as to the secret disposition of the person who forgets. A young woman who is accustomed to receive a bunch of flowers from her husband on her birthday, misses this token of affection on a festive occasion of this sort, and thereupon bursts into tears. The husband comes up, and is unable to account for her tears until she tells him, "To-day is my birthday." He strikes his forehead and cries, "Why, I had completely forgotten it," and wants to go out to get her some flowers. But she is not to be consoled, for she sees in the forgetfulness of her husband a proof that she does not play the same part in his thoughts as formerly. This Mrs. L. met my wife two days before, and told her that she was feeling well, and asked about me. She was under my treatment years ago.
Supplementary facts: I once actually wrote something like a monograph on a plant, namely, an essay on the coca plant, which drew the attention of K. Koller to the anæsthetic properties of cocaine. I had hinted at this use of the alkaloid in my publication, but I was not sufficiently thorough to pursue the matter further. This suggests that on the forenoon of the day after the dream (for the interpretation of which I did not find time until the evening) I had thought of cocaine in a kind of day phantasy. In case I should ever be afflicted with glaucoma, I was going to go to Berlin, and there have myself operated upon, incognito, at the house of my Berlin friend, by a physician whom he would recommend to me. The surgeon, who would not know upon whom he was operating, would boast as usual how easy these operations had become
