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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
7. xii. 30
Dear Mr. Zweig,
I was very pleased to find the old warm note in your letter, though I have recently sent you nothing but refusals.
What you say about the Soviet experiment strikes an answering chord in me. We have been deprived by it of a hope—and an illusion—and we have received nothing in exchange. We are moving towards dark times: the apathy of old age ought to enable me to rise above it all, but I cannot help the fact that I am sorry for my seven grandchildren.
I cannot write the yellow book you wish me to. I know too little about the human drive for power, for I have lived my life as a theorist. I am constantly surprised at the tendencies of recent years, which have carried me so far into the world of topical current affairs. Indeed I would like to write nothing more, and yet I am once again writing an Introduction1 for something someone else is doing. I must not say what it is, but it too is an analysis and at the same time very much a matter of contemporary interest, almost political. You will never guess what.
I shall get your essays here. The one on the links between Nietzsche's influence and mine you should certainly write; I don't need to read it. You could write it when I am no longer here and you are haunted by the memory of me. That you should hand over your material on this subject to someone else is out of the question; and who should it be anyway? I know of no one.
I am not satisfied with my prosthesis, but I have no intention of going to Berlin on that account. I don't suppose I would get anything better there. So I shall not be seeing