Mrs K. suggested that the tramp who would hurt Mummy at night seemed to him very much like Hitler who frightened Cook in the air-raid and ill-treated the Austrians. Richard knew that Mrs K. was Austrian, and so she too would be ill-treated. At night he might have been afraid that when his parents went to bed something could happen between them with their genitals that would injure Mummy (Note II).

Richard looked surprised and frightened. He did not seem to understand what the word ‘genital’ meant.2 Up to this point he had obviously understood and had listened with mixed feelings.

Mrs K. asked whether he knew what she meant by ‘genital’.

Richard first said no, then admitted that he thought he knew. Mummy had told him that babies grew inside her, that she had little eggs there and Daddy put some kind of fluid into her which made them grow. (Consciously he seemed to have no conception of sexual intercourse, nor a name for the genitals.)3 He went on to say that Daddy was very nice, very kind, he wouldn’t do anything to Mummy.

Mrs K. interpreted that he might have contradictory thoughts about Daddy. Although Richard knew that Daddy was a kind man, at night, when he was frightened, he might fear that Daddy was doing some harm to Mummy. When he thought of the tramp, he did not remember that Daddy, who was in the bedroom with Mummy, would protect her; and that was, Mrs K. suggested, because he felt that it was Daddy himself who might hurt Mummy.

— Narrative of a Child Analysis by Melanie Klein