a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

It would be tempting enough to collect similar observations, but I will go no
further; I will let you glance instead upon those cases in which our
interpretation has to wait for its proof upon future developments.
The chief condition of these cases is conceivably that the existing psychic
situation is unknown to us or inaccessible to our inquiries. At that time our
interpretation has only the value of a conjecture to which we ourselves do not
wish to grant too much weight. Later, however, something happens which
shows us how justified was our interpretation even at that time. I was once
the guest of a young married couple and heard the young wife laughingly tell
of a recent experience, of how on the day after her return from her
honeymoon she had hunted up her unmarried sister again in order to go
shopping with her, as in former times, while her husband went to his
business. Suddenly she noticed a gentleman on the other side of the street,
and she nudged her sister, saying, "Why look, there goes Mr. K." She had
forgotten that this gentleman was her husband of some weeks' standing. I
shuddered at this tale but did not dare to draw the inference. The little
anecdote did not occur to me again until a year later, after this marriage had
come to a most unhappy end.
A. Maeder tells of a lady who, the day before her wedding, forgot to try on
her wedding dress and to the despair of the dressmaker only remembered it
later in the evening. He adds in connection with this forgetfulness the fact
that she divorced her husband soon after. I know a lady now divorced from
her husband, who, in managing her fortune, frequently signed documents
with her maiden name, and this many years before she really resumed it. I
know of other women who lost their wedding rings on their honeymoon and
also know that the course of the marriage gave a meaning to this accident.
And now one more striking example with a better termination. It is said that
the marriage of a famous German chemist did not take place because he
forgot the hour of the wedding, and instead of going to the church went to
the laboratory. He was wise enough to rest satisfied with this one attempt,
and died unmarried at a ripe old age.
Perhaps the idea has also come to you that in these cases mistakes have
taken the place of the Omina or omens of the ancients. Some of the Omina
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