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preoccupation with Easter, with its theme of rebirth or resurrection, and with Rome, the symbolic locus of the Christian (specifically, Catholic) faith? Now, as I have said several times, I do not wish to deny Freud’s strong, consciously articulated hostility to Rome and Christianity, but his well-known anti-religious statements cannot be allowed to blind us to the obviously pro-Christian aspects of the passages quoted from his letters to Fliess. In them, he spoke repeatedly of Rome, and above all of being there on Easter!86 He described his emotion as one of acute longing, a phrase strongly implying a personal longing for someone—in this case, almost certainly his nanny. It is as though, somehow, even after 40 years, Freud dreamed of being reunited with his Anna “in Rome” (in all the deep symbolic sense of that word); of discovering rebirth and salvation; of being made whole with her.
Why should he associate missing his nanny with Rome and Easter? There are several possible reasons. Obviously, his nanny was Catholic and often took him to Mass, but why Rome? I have discovered by asking those familiar with Moravian Catholic customs that not only was Easter a major and drawn-out holiday in which the entire village would have participated; but there was also a strong tradition that every good Catholic should try to visit Rome at least once in his lifetime. Above all, the desire was to be in Rome on Easter.87 This desire to make a pilgrimage to Rome for Easter could easily have been communicated to Sigmund by his nanny. There is also a most interesting story that was told to little Czech children at Easter. On Good Friday in Czechoslovakia, the bells of every church were silent in honor of Christ’s suffering on the cross. Since church bells were an important part of any town’s atmosphere, the children would naturally ask about their silence, their “absence.” They were told that on that day, Good Friday, all the bells had flown to Rome to be rejuvenated; they then flew back on Holy Saturday, ready to ring out noisily in honor of the Resurrection on Sunday morning.88 This simple story was (and is) apparently as commonplace in Czechoslovakia as the more complicated Santa Claus story is here in America. At this late date, it is probably impossible to find any documentable evidence for this Czech cultural influence on Freud, but it is obvious that the nanny and Rome were strongly associated in his mind (some additional evidence is given below).89 Furthermore, it must be emphasized that Rome and Easter, linked together, very definitely signify resurrection, salvation, or rebirth. This is the meaning of Easter. For Freud to speak enthusiastically about Easter in Rome—where St. Peter’s Square would be crowded with people celebrating the resurrection; where the whole city would be affected by the Easter atmosphere—was quite simply for Freud to reveal his hidden partisanship for Christian Rome. We may recall his reference to a “secret wish,” to his desire possibly to |