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Berggasse 19, Vienna IX, 3.1.1926
Dear Dr Pfister,
Many thanks for having again thought about me at Christmas time. I too am taking advantage of an extension of the holidays to converse with you.
With us the situation, not to say the whole atmosphere, is dominated by Abraham's death which, as you know, took place on Christmas Day. He is a great loss to us, and he will hardly be replaceable. I write that refraining from all emotional reactions and assessing his objective value only. For the time being Eitingon intends to step into the breach and take over his work.
With our lad A.B. things are going very strangely. My belief as a physician that he is on the verge of a paranoid dementia has increased. I was again very near the point of giving him up, but there is something touching about him which deters me from doing so; the threat of breaking off the treatment has made him gentle and amenable again, with the result that at present a good understanding prevails between us. The great deterioration during which the letter to you was written was connected with my telling him the apparently real secret of his neurosis. The immediate reaction to that revelation was bound to be an enormous increase in the resistance. What weighs on me in his case is my belief that, unless the outcome is very good indeed, it will be very bad indeed; what I mean is that he would commit suicide