My Oedipus Complex Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the school gate as usual. Another boy was waiting there as well – one of the seniors. When he heard the screams of the school breaking up he strolled away and stationed himself at the foot of the hill by the crossroads. Then Una herself came rushingout in her wide-brimmed felt hat, swinging her satchel, and approached me with a conspiratorial air.
    â€˜Oh, Larry, guess what’s happened!’ she whispered. ‘I can’t bring you home with me today. I’ll come down and see you during the week though. Will that do?’
    â€˜Yes, thank you,’ I said in a dead cold voice. Even at the most tragic moment of my life I could be nothing but polite. I watched her scamper down the hill to where the big boy was waiting. He looked over his shoulder with a grin, and then the two of them went off together.
    Instead of following them I went back up the hill alone and stood leaning over the quarry wall, looking at the roadway and the valley of the city beneath me. I knew this was the end. I was too young to marry Una. I didn’t know where babies came from and I didn’t understand algebra. The fellow she had gone home with probably knew everything about both. I was full of gloom and revengeful thoughts. I, who had considered it sinful and dangerous to fight, was now regretting that I hadn’t gone after him to batter his teeth in and jump on his face. It wouldn’t even have mattered to me that I was too young and weak and that he would have done all the battering. I saw that love was a game that two people couldn’t play at without pushing, just like football.
    I went home and, without saying a word, took out the work I had been neglecting so long. That too seemed to have lost its appeal. Moodily I ruled five lines and began to trace the difficult sign of the treble clef.
    â€˜Didn’t you see Una, Larry?’ Mother asked in surprise, looking up from her sewing.
    â€˜No, Mummy,’ I said, too full for speech.
    â€˜Wisha, ’twasn’t a falling-out ye had?’ she asked in dismay, coming towards me. I put my head on my hands and sobbed. ‘Wisha, never mind, childeen!’ she murmured, running her hand through my hair. ‘She was a bit old for you. You reminded her of her little brother that was killed, of course – that was why. You’ll soon make new friends, take my word for it.’
    But I did not believe her. That evening there was no comfort for me. My great work meant nothing to me and I knew it was all I would ever have. For all the difference it made I might as well become a priest. I felt it was a poor, sad, lonesome thing being nothing but a genius.

My Oedipus Complex
    Father was in the army all through the war – the First War, I mean – so, up to the age of five, I never saw much of him, and what I saw did not worry me. Sometimes I woke and there was a big figure in khaki peering down at me in the candlelight. Sometimes in the early morning I heard the slamming of the front door and the clatter of nailed boots down the cobbles of the lane. These were Father’s entrances and exits. Like Santa Claus he came and went mysteriously.
    In fact, I rather liked his visits, though it was an uncomfortable squeeze between Mother and him when I got into the big bed in the early morning. He smoked, which gave him a pleasant musty smell, and shaved, an operation of astounding interest. Each time he left a trail of souvenirs – model tanks and Gurkha knives with handles made of bullet cases, and German helmets and cap badges and button-sticks, and all sorts of military equipment – carefully stowed away in a long box on top of the wardrobe, in case they ever came in handy. There was a bit of the magpie about Father; he expected everything to come in handy. When his back was turned, Mother let me get a chair and rummage through his treasures. She didn’t seem to think so highly of them as he did.
    The war was the most peaceful period of