purely symbolic character, and, to a certain extent, serve to indicate the desired situation.
Case 56. (Pascal, “Igiene dell’ amore.”) Every three months a man of about forty-five years would visit a certain prostitute, and pay her ten francs for the following act. The puella had to undress him, tie his hands and feet, bandage his eyes, and draw the curtains of the windows. Then she would have her guest sit down on a sofa, and had to leave him there alone. After half an hour she had to come back and unbind him. Then the man would pay her and leave perfectly satisfied, to repeat his visit in about three months.
In the dark this man seems to have extended this situation, of being helpless in the hands of a woman, further in imagination. The following case, in which again a complicated comedy, in the sense of masochistic desires, is played, is still more peculiar:—
Case 57. (Dr. Pascal, ibid.) A gentleman in Paris was accustomed to call on certain evenings at a house where a woman, the owner, acceded to his peculiar desire. He entered the salon in full-dress, and she, likewise in evening toilette, had to receive him with a very haughty manner. He addressed her as “Marquise,” and she had to call him “dear Count.” Then he spoke of his good fortune in finding her alone, of his love for her, and of a lover’s rendezvous. At this the lady had to feel insulted. The pseudo-count grew bolder and bolder, and asked the pseudo-marquise for a kiss on her shoulder. There is an angry scene; the bell is rung; a servant, prepared for the occasion, appears, and throws the count out of the house. He departs well satisfied, and pays the actors in the farce handsomely.
In connection with this case of symbolic masochism, two more are here given, in which the psychical perversion was entirely confined to the sphere of thought and imagination, and no realization was attempted. The first is that of an individual, mentally and physically predisposed, bearing degenerative signs, in whom mental and physical impotence occurred early:—
