Particularly he finds it embarrassing and obscene to be aware of her as flesh, and he avoids thinking of her body; in the horror that he feels toward his father or a second husband or a lover, there is less jealousy than scandal; to be reminded that his mother is a carnal being is to be reminded of his own birth, an event he repudiates with all his force; or at least he wishes to give it the majesty of a great cosmic phenomenon; he thinks that Nature, which invests all individuals but belongs to none, should be contained in his mother; he hates her to become prey, not as it is often presumed because he wants to possess her himself, but because he wants her to exist above all possession: she must not have the ordinary features of wife or mistress.