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More revealing is Jones's account of Freud's self-analysis of his two famed fainting spells, which occurred when he bested Jung in relatively minor arguments. "Freud," says Jones, "expressed the opinion that all his attacks could be traced to the effect on him of his young brother's death when he [Sigmund] was a year and seven months old. It would therefore seem that Freud was himself a mild case of the type he described as 'those who are wrecked by success,' in this case the success of defeating an opponent—the earliest example of which was his successful death-wish against his little brother Julius." That is going some, even for such an "imperishable feat" as Freud's self-analysis.
Where There Is Smoke. Throughout World War I Freud hoped for a German victory (his three sons were in Austrian service), but felt guilty about doing so. In bland disregard of censorship laws, he corresponded with Dr. Jones in England. He complained about the fall in the value of money, the scarcity of food and especially cigars. Jones thinks that, with Freud, smoking was not merely a habit but an addiction—he smoked 20 cigars a day, was literally ill without them. But Jones offers no analysis of this extraordinary dependence. A very common Freudian interpretation: cigars and cigarettes are "nipple substitutes," and reliance on them is a sign of fixation at the oral (most infantile) level of development.
Aside from smoking, Freud's one great self-indulgence was travel. He so hated Vienna that he would not even take a trolley to its waltzy woods. He would spend part of his summer vacation with his growing family—three sons, three daughters.-Then he would leave his wife behind and push on with a companion—sometimes a brother, often his sister-in-law Minna Bernays—for some energetic touring.
Freud had a passion for mushrooms. "On an expedition for the purpose, he would often leave the children and . . . then creep silently up to it and suddenly pounce to capture the fungus with his hat as if it were a bird or butterfly." Unfortunately, Analyst Jones does not reveal the unconscious symbolism either of this hunting technique or of the underlying love of mushrooms, though, of course, they grow best in musty, dank recesses —like neuroses.
Mother Rome. As much as Freud detested Vienna he admired and adored Rome. Yet for half his life he worshiped it from afar. Instead of going to Rome, he dreamed of it. But "some mysterious taboo" held him back: in years of extensive travels, he got little closer to Rome than Trasimeno. 85 miles away. That was as close as Hannibal ever got —an important point to Freud, who idolized the Carthaginian.
Dr. Jones scoffs at the many explanations, nearly all postulating an unconscious urge to join the Church of Rome, which have been offered for Freud's strange behavior. In Jones's view, the answer lies in Freud's Oedipus feelings. Rome was "the Mother of Cities." At first he could not excel his father-image, Hannibal. Rome's enemy. So, says Jones, it was only after years of self-analysis "that Freud at last conquered [his] resistance and triumphantly entered Rome." In other words, he shouldered his father aside and possessed his Mother of Cities.