This is the whole dream, or, at all events, all that I can remember. It appears to me not only obscure and meaningless, but more especially odd. Mrs. E.L. is a person with whom I am scarcely on visiting terms, nor to my knowledge have I ever desired any more cordial relationship. I have not seen her for a long time, and do not think there was any mention of her recently. No emotion whatever accompanied the dream process.
Reflecting upon this dream does not make it a bit clearer to my mind. I will now, however, present the ideas, without premeditation and without criticism, which introspection yielded. I soon notice that it is an advantage to break up the dream into its elements, and to search out the ideas which link themselves to each fragment.
Company; at table or table d’hôte. The recollection of the slight event with which the evening of yesterday ended is at once called up. I left a small party in the company of a friend, who offered to drive me home in his cab. “I prefer a taxi,” he said; “that gives one such a pleasant occupation; there is always something to look at.” When we were in the cab, and the cab-driver turned the disc so that the first sixty hellers were visible, I continued the jest. “We have hardly got in and we already owe sixty hellers. The taxi always reminds me of the table d’hôte. It makes me avaricious and selfish by continuously reminding me of my debt. It seems to me to mount up too quickly, and I am always afraid that I shall be at a disadvantage, just as I cannot resist at table d’hôte the comical fear that I am getting too little, that I must look after myself.” In far-fetched connection with this I quote:
“To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go.”
Another idea about the table d’hôte. A few weeks ago I was very cross with my dear wife at the dinner-table at a Tyrolese health resort, because she was not sufficiently reserved with some neighbors with whom I wished to have absolutely nothing to do. I begged her to occupy herself rather with me than with the strangers. That is just as if I had been at a disadvantage at the table d’hôte. The contrast between the behavior of my wife at the table and that of Mrs. E.L. in the dream now strikes me: “Addresses herself entirely to me.”