Sigmund Freud:
"Once, as I was roaming the unfamiliar and deserted streets of a small Italian town on a sunny afternoon, I found myself in a district whose nature could scarcely be in doubt. At the windows of the little houses, only painted women were visible, and I quickly turned around and quit the street as soon as possible."
"But after wandering aimlessly for a while, I found myself on the same street again, where my presence began to attract attention. My rapid retreat had only one result: after several other vicious circles I found myself in the same place, for a third time."
"At this point I was seized by a feeling I can only describe as disturbing, and I was happy when - having given up any further attempts at exploration - I found myself back in the square I had left just a short while earlier."
Of course, for Sargent, such a thing would have happened not on sunny streets, but dreary Venetian ballrooms.
The quotation is from Das Unheimliche, in Freud-Studienausgabe (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1975), vol.3, p.228.
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