A lady of nearly thirty years of age suffered from very severe obsessional symptoms. I might perhaps have been able to help her if my work had not been destroyed by the caprice of fate—perhaps I shall tell you about it later. In the course of a day she would perform the following peculiar obsessive act, among others, several times over. She would run out of her room into the adjoining one, there take up a certain position at the table in the centre of the room, ring for her maid, give her a trivial order or send her away without, and then run back again. There was certainly nothing very dreadful about this, but it might well arouse curiosity. The explanation presented itself in the simplest and most unexceptionable manner, without any assistance on the part of the analyst. I cannot imagine how I could even have suspected the meaning of this obsession or could possibly have suggested an interpretation for it. Every time I had asked the patient, “Why do you do this? What is the meaning of it?” she had answered, “I don’t know.” But one day, after I had succeeded in overcoming a great hesitation on her part, involving a matter of principle, she suddenly did know, for she related the history of the obsessive act. More than ten years previously she had married a man very much older than herself, who had proved impotent on the wedding-night. Innumerable times on that night he had run out of his room into hers in order to make the attempt, but had failed every time. In the morning he had said angrily: “It’s enough to disgrace one in the eyes of the maid who does the beds,” and seizing a bottle of red ink which happened to be at hand he poured it on the sheet, but not exactly in the place where such a mark might have been. At first I did not understand what this recollection could have to do with the obsessive act in question; for I could see no similarity between the two situations, except in the running from one room into the other, and perhaps also in the appearance of the servant on the scene. The patient then led me to the table in the adjoining room, where I found a great mark on the table-cover. She explained further that she stood by the table in such a way that when the maid came in she could not miss seeing this mark. After this, there could no longer be any doubt about the connection between the current obsessive act and the scene of the wedding-night, though there was still a great deal to learn about it. It was clear, first of all, that the patient identified herself with her husband; in imitating his running from one room into another she acted his part. To keep up the similarity we must assume that she has substituted the table and table-cover for the bed and sheet. This might seem too arbitrary; but then we have not studied dream-symbolism in vain. In dreams a table is very often found to represent a bed. “Bed and board” together mean marriage, so that the one easily stands for the other.