I could not learn definitely from him whether the series of associated thoughts turned first from his wife to his troubles with her, to her attitude toward him, and then to her resemblance in this respect (her nagging, pestering persistence and actual persecution of him) to a snake which is endeavoring to enwrap itself about him, to strangle him, to withdraw from him his very life's blood, etc. This may or may not have been the line of associations just preceding the dream. He had no idea as to what the dream meant. Using free association, in ordinary face-to-face conversation, I asked him what "snake" reminded him of. The association came in a moment. He smiled, became embarrassed, said it was foolish of him to tell me this, but it reminded him of his wife. He had always looked upon his wife as a snake in human form. He had frequently called her "snake" because of her conduct toward him. She had wound herself about his life in snake-like fashion. And then came the story of their troubles. This was his second wife. She was fifteen years his junior. He was meek, feeble, of weak will-power, without initiative. She was domineering. Although his wife never told him so openly and in so many words, he felt convinced that the trouble had begun more or less because his wife's sexual libido was not satisfied in her sexual relations with him. He admits that she is a passionate woman, her sexual libido was of such strength that he, much older than she, and not too strong physically, could but little gratify her. The first complaints and the sole trouble which appeared on the surface were financial--he barely made a living and she complained thereat continually, bitterly and tyrannically. It seems that her complaint in this direction was justified. It is difficult to determine just what role her lack of sexual gratification played-- whether it only acted as stirring up the embers of dissatisfaction (with his weekly earnings) which already existed, or whether it was the basic factor, led to her dissatisfaction with her matrimonial choice, and caused her to seek some more or less valid cause for complaint, in that way permitting her, more or less consciously, to transfer her dissatisfaction and discontent from the lack of sexual gratification to the hard pressed financial condition (which perhaps she might, for that matter, have been willing to endure, did she but obtain the full gratification of her sexual craving). At any rate, both of these factors played their role in causing domestic disagreement, one factor being openly acknowledged as the cause by his wife, the other factor never mentioned by her, but believed by him to be an important accessory, if not the main, fundamental and primary source of the trouble. His wife, using his poor earning capacity as a weapon, and with the demand for "more money" as her battle-cry, carried on a campaign of complaint, grumbling, nagging, fault-finding, insult and abuse, but little