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Here is the slip: The quotation from Shakespeare should have read, “Thou owest God a death.” This was not just an example of forgetfulness, because Freud was very accurate in general when it came to quoting Shakespeare. Moreover, the line as “rewritten” does not scan properly. (Freud made the same error later in The Interpretation of Dreams.107
To return to Freud’s Christian activities, here is a passage by Jones, in which he describes Freud on a visit to Rome in 1907. Jones writes: Rome was as heavenly as possible. If only we could live there. On the last day he climbed the Castle S. Angelo for a view of Rome, visited the Sistine Chapel once more and revelled in the wonderful antiquities of the Vatican Museum.108 Later in the same volume, Jones mentions receiving a postcard from Freud in 1912, in which he stated that “Rome had worked its old magic.”109 A few days later Jones received a letter from Rome in which Freud wrote of a bout with ill health that had begun before his arrival in Rome, but that was now improving: “I feel strengthened and relieved by the air and the impressions of this divine town. In fact, I have been more happy than healthy at Rome, but my forces are coming back.”110 While in Rome, Freud reported visiting the catacombs and enjoying the Vatican galleries; he commented about the city, “These brief visits leave one with an unappeased longing.”111 We must not forget Freud’s famous visits to study the Moses statue by Michaelangelo (see Figure 3-5)—visits that would result in Freud’s famous essay on the work. In 1912, Freud visited the statue every day for a week or more.112 To examine the piece, by the world’s best-known Christian sculptor, he sat in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains), where the statue adorns the tomb of Pope Julius II. (This Pope had the same name as Freud’s brother Julius, whose death “planted the seeds of guilt.”) Here, as Freud returned day after day to look at the Old Testament prophet (and father figure) set in a New Testament environment, he spent many moving hours.113 A letter written by Freud to Karl Abraham in 1913 perhaps best captures not only how Freud loved Rome but also how much Rome did for him emotionally. It certainly makes clear that Freud’s love was not for a churchless Rome: “I have quickly recovered my spirits and zest for work in the incomparably beautiful Rome, and in the free hours between visits to museums, churches and the Campagna I have managed to write.…”114 It cannot be overemphasized that in the voluminous correspondence of Freud (and he wrote a staggering number of letters), almost the only times that he expressed happiness and joy, the times in which he escaped his baseline mood of melancholy and even sorrow, were when he was in Rome or speaking about it. Only in Rome did the sun seem to break into his life. Perhaps it was only in Rome that he was able to |