Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

plete breakdown and had been committed toamental hospital.Bertie isa slim, good-looking boy, very cleancut with a clear skin and delicate features.Heis extremely friendly, rather gay and, in themanner of children who have spent a long timein hospitals, he does not differentiate over-muchbetween the various grownup figures butgreets everybody with an impartial smile.While in bed he was always deep in play andwould keep himself busy with a few tiny toycars, a set of paper houses and similar playthings. He never mentioned his parents andseemed so unconcerned about everything thatwe doubted whether any knowledge of thefamily tragedy had ever reached him.After a while we had the opportunity ofquestioning a cousin of his mother's who visitedhim. We learned that Bertie did not only knowof his father's death but had actually shared allhis mother's grief and anxiety. His parents hadbeen devoted to each other; his mother hadnever let Bertie out of her sight.One day during the period of the big raidsthe father had not returned from work for hismidday meal and after waiting for him forhours the mother had started the usual search.She took Bertie along wherever she went, to allthe people she questioned, to the police andeven in the end, to the morgue. Here he was125