Now can psycho-analysis do better than this? Yes, certainly I hope to show you that even in such an obscure case as this it is possible to discover something which makes closer comprehension possible. First, I shall ask you to notice this incomprehensible detail; that the anonymous letter on which her delusion is founded was positively provoked by the patient herself, by her saying to the scheming housemaid the day before that nothing could be more awful than to hear that her husband had an intrigue with a young woman. She first put the idea of sending the letter into the servant’s mind by this. So the delusion acquires a certain independence of the letter; it existed beforehand as a fear—or, as a wish?—in her mind. Besides this, the further small indications revealed in the bare two hours of analysis are noteworthy. The patient responded very coldly, it is true, to the request to tell me her further thoughts, ideas, and recollections, after she had finished her story. She declared that nothing came to her mind, she had told me everything; and after two hours the attempt had to be given up, because she announced that she felt quite well already and was certain that the morbid idea would not return. Her saying this was naturally due to resistance and to the fear of further analysis, In these two hours she had let fall some remarks, nevertheless, which made a certain interpretation not only possible but inevitable, and this interpretation threw a sharp light on the origin of the delusion of jealousy. There actually existed in her an infatuation for a young man, for the very son-in-law who had urged her to seek my assistance. Of this infatuation she herself knew nothing or only perhaps very little; in the circumstances of their relationship it was easily possible for it to disguise itself as harmless tenderness on her part. After what we have already learnt it is not difficult to see into the mind of this good woman and excellent mother. Such an infatuation, such a monstrous, impossible thing, could not come into her conscious mind; it persisted, nevertheless, and unconsciously exerted a heavy pressure. Something had to happen, some sort of relief had to be found; and the simplest alleviation lay in that mechanism of displacement which so regularly plays its part in the formation of delusional jealousy. If not merely she, old woman that she was, were in love with a young man, but if only her old husband too were in love with a young mistress, then her torturing conscience would be absolved from the infidelity. The phantasy of her husband’s infidelity was thus a cooling balm on her burning wound. Of her own love she never became conscious; but its reflection in the delusion, which brought such advantages, thus became compulsive, delusional and conscious. All arguments against it could naturally avail nothing; for they were directed only against the reflection, and not against the original to which its strength was due and which lay buried