ABSTRACT
Jakob Freud was a cloth merchant whom history remembers as the father of Sigmund Freud. Well dressed, and wearing a new fur hat, he was taking a walk one Saturday through the streets of the city of Freiberg, and on rounding a corner found another man blocking his path. The situation was embarrassing. Sidewalks at the time were often no more than a narrow track that allowed pedestrians to avoid the mud in the streets. Jakob Freud began to take another step forward, but timidly, since he found no question of honor or principle in demanding or allowing precedence. The other man, however, was quicker, and eager to assert his sense of superiority: he knocked the hat from Jakob Freud’s head and into the mud, shouting, “Get down from the sidewalk, you Jew!” On telling his son about the incident, this was the point at which he stopped. But the little Sigmund wanted to hear more, since this, for him, was where the story began to grow interesting. He asked, “So, what did you do?”
