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In this we are undoubtedly right. But we are not right if we conclude further that this relation has been merely one of love. On the contrary, his mourning over the loss of his father is the more likely to turn into melancholia, the more his attitude to him bore the stamp of ambivalence. This emphasis on ambivalence, however, prepares us for the possibility of the father being subjected to a debasement, as we see happening in the painter’s demonological neurosis. If we were able to learn as much about Christoph Haizmann as about a patient undergoing an analysis with us, it would be an easy matter to elicit this ambivalence, to get him to remember when and under what provocations he was given cause to fear and hate his father; and, above all, to discover what were the accidental factors that were added to the typical motives for a hatred of the father which are necessarily inherent in the natural relationship of son to father. Perhaps we might then find a special explanation for the painter’s inhibition in work. It is possible that his father had opposed his wish to become a painter. If that was so, his inability to practise his art after his father’s death would on the one hand be an expression of the familiar phenomenon of ‘deferred obedience’; and, on the other hand, by making him incapable of earning a livelihood, it would be bound to increase his longing for his father as a protector from the cares of life. In its aspect as deferred obedience it would also be an expression of remorse and a successful self-punishment.

Since, however, we cannot carry out an analysis of this sort with Christoph Haizmann, who died in the year 1700, we must content ourselves with bringing out those features of his case history which may point to the typical exciting causes of a negative attitude to the father. There are only a few such features, nor are they very striking, but they are of great interest.

Let us first consider the part played by the number nine. The pact with the Evil One was for nine years. On this point the unquestionably trustworthy report by the village priest of Pottenbrunn is quite clear: pro novem annis Syngraphen scriptam tradidit. This letter of introduction, dated September 1, 1677, is also able to inform us that the appointed time was about to expire in a few days: quorum et finis 24 mensis hujus futurus appropinquat. The pact would therefore have been signed on September 24, 1668.¹ In the same report, indeed, yet another use is made of the number nine. The painter claims to have withstood the temptations of the Evil One nine times - ‘nonies’ - before he yielded to him. This detail is no longer mentioned in the later reports. In the Abbot’s deposition the phrase ‘pos annos novem’ is used, and the compiler repeats ‘ad novem annos’ in his summary - a proof that this number was not regarded as indifferent.

¹ The contradictory fact that both the pacts as transcribed bear the date 1669 will be considered later.