The Unconscious

"In one of his lectures, Freud introduced the concept of the unconscious by describing a patient who felt irresistibly compelled to hurry into a nearby room, stand by a certain table, and summon the parlor maid. She would then dismiss the maid but would soon feel compelled to repeat the sequence. The meaning of the ritual was a complete mystery to her and very distressing. Then one day she spontaneously understood it.
She was separated from her husband, with whom she had lived only briefly. On her wedding night her husband had been impotent. Through the course of the night he had repeatedly hurried from his room into hers, attempted intercourse, and failed. The next morning he had poured red ink on the bed so that the maid would believe his bride had been deflowered. However, he hurriedly positioned the spot of ink in such a way that his stratagem was defeated.
Since the separation this woman had lived celibate and alone, her life crippled by obsessive rituals, thinking of her husband with exaggerated respect and admiration. She told Freud there was a stain on the cloth covering the table by which she stood when summoning the maid. She stood in such a way as to be sure the maid would see it.
The woman had unconsciously designed the ritual to save her husband from humiliation by symbolically showing the maid the hymenal spot on the sheet."