Letter from Wilfred Bion to Francesca, February 6, 1959 [1]. The Other Side of Genius: Family Letters

My darling,

I was so cheered to have your unexpected letter that I nearly wept. I think I must be feeling a lot better as I felt so depressed by my breakfast of porridge and hot milk (no sugar) and so wanted to eat the bacon and tomato – but stoically refrained. This is my contribution to the treatment and I am feeling more and more that what is the matter with me is the after effect of jaundice ten years ago. I think my liver won't turn all the food into nourishment, but leaves undigested stuff to circulate as poison – hence anything may happen, and it always looks like something else.

… Like you I feel only half alive though I hardly realize it till I become wholly alive through your letter. I must be pretty alive to lie here being half blown out of bed day and night apparently none the worse in spite of the fact that after all I am presumably getting rid of a cold.

I think I feel depressed mostly because I find it difficult to believe I shall get out of here until I am actually back at home. “You have to be difficult to get out of here”, says the ward maid. “If you're nice they keep you.” I must tell her to spread horrible tales of my ‘difficulty’.

And how is my darling wife? You are so brave and look so cheerful and on top of things, and I know you do everything so well that I really wish I could do something worthwhile to match it. And indeed as I write to you I feel I want to be writing a marvellous paper. But if I start on my paper, alas! not marvellous; I feel I don't want to waste time on such rot but should be writing to you.

I could almost write a book on the extraordinary old boy in the corner opposite me. He looks like a scrawny old vulture at death's door but he skips around as merry as a cricket. Some gems of conversation: