the father died Omicron held his hand over his father's
mouth to find out whether he was still breathing. Then he was pursued by
compulsive ideas, that he had killed his father. In dreams the same
reproaches appear. We realize how powerful his murder impulses were. His
reproaches are justified. For he had countless death wishes that were
centered about that most precious life."

A girl not yet six years old told her mother the following dream:

"We went together, there we saw a camel on a rock, and you climbed up the
cliff. The camel wanted to keep slobbering you, but you wouldn't let him,
and said, 'I'd like to do it, but if you are like this, I won't do it.' "

After the telling of the dream the mother asked the girl if she could
imagine what the camel signified in the dream, and she immediately
replied: "Papa, because he has to drag along and worry himself like a
camel. You know, Mamma, when he wants to slobber you it is as if he said
to you in camel talk, 'Please play with me. I will marry you; I won't let
you go away.' The rocks on which you are were steep, the path was quite
clear, but the railing was very dirty and there was a deep abyss, and a
man slipped over the railing into the abyss. I don't know whether it was
Uncle or Papa."

Stekel remarks on this: "The neurotic child understands the whole conflict
of the parents. The mother refused the father coitus. In this she will not
'play' with the camel. The camel wants to 'marry' her. It is quite
puzzling how the child knows that Mamma has long entertained thoughts of
separation.... Children evidently observe much more sharply and exactly
than we have yet suspected. The conclusion of the dream is a quite
transparent symbolism of coitus. But the dream thoughts go deeper yet. A
man falls into an abyss. The father goes on little mountain expeditions.
Does the child wish that the father may fall? The father treats the child
badly and occasionally strikes her unjustly. At all events it is to be
noted that the little puss says to her mother, 'Mamma, isn't it true that
when Papa dies you will marry Dr. Stekel?' Another time she chattered,
'You know, Mamma, Dr. N. is nicer than Papa; he would suit you much
better.' Also the antithesis of clean and dirty, that later plays such an
important part in the psychic life of neurotics, is here indicated."

Not only the camel but also the railing and the abyss are interesting in
relation to Sec. 7 and 8 of the parable, where oc