A Sketch of E. J.'s Personality

We are here for the same purpose: to honour the memory and achievements of Ernest Jones. When I received this invitation I tried to remember that I am going to talk about him and not about myself. But you know how it is when you are married. You give up a part of your personality to your partner and—talking about him as a person—it is inevitable that I must bring myself in as well. I hope you all see this as a necessity and not as conceit.

An outstanding feature of his personality was his decisiveness, the quickness with which he could come to decisions. The best example is a very personal one. We met through Hanns Sachs who at that time was curing his tuberculosis in Switzerland where I was then taking a University degree in Economics, a subject adhering to the Law Faculty in Vienna which was not open to women. Ernest Jones was on holiday in Switzerland and on the way to Vienna to meet Freud for the first time since the War. Sachs, who was a friend of my family, had arranged a rendez-vous in one of the charming garden cafés there; Sachs, E. J., my mother and myself. Actually Sachs was not there, but E.J. came with an outstretched hand to meet me; he wore a white suit because it was a very hot autumn. We talked, had dinner with a large company that night and arranged to meet again the next day. I had a big basket of flowers on that day, they were sweet peas, 'an English flower' as the attached card said. On the next day, a Sunday, we met again and E.J. asked me to come for a walk. In the Dolder woods he asked me whether there was a part of Switzerland I didn't know and wanted to see. I said: 'Oh, the South Lugano. I long to go there.' Then he asked me whether I would come with him and added: 'I mean as my wife of course.' So this decisive question came after three days; it was followed by 36 years of happy marriage.

But at that time—1919—I was still Austrian and, I think, an enemy alien. So E.J. during his stay in Vienna asked the Mayor to give me