You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
10. 5. 1931
Dear Mr. Zweig,
I wished—and indeed I still wish—to reproach you for having so carelessly let yourself in for superfluous ailments of your various organs and functions, as your letter darkly hints,1 but it has occurred to me in time that I am not the right person to criticize you on this score. For on April 24th
I had to undergo a further operation for a growth fundamentally similar to the one I had eight years ago, and this has robbed me of a good deal of my energy, and today after what I have gone through I am weak, hors de combat, impeded in my speech, a mere shadow of my former self. Well-meaning friends advise me to choose another exit from life rather than this particular form of relapse. I am in agreement with them, but quite without influence on further developments.
Tomorrow I shall make my first attempt to creep back to work. An hour in the morning and another in the afternoon. Living one's life for one's health and guarded like a historical monument is otherwise hard to bear.
As soon as my treatments allow me the time I shall yield to the temptation of reading your 18 stories.1 Good things are in store for me, I'm sure. You should pursue your phantasies with patience. You will discover an astonishing amount and probably gain a great respect for the poetic capabilities of your unconscious. But do not expect to get through it too quickly. Such wealth is not easily exhausted. I advise you to keep clear of all further dilettantish experiments with illness and I send warm greetings to you and your wife.
Yours
Freud
Reference to an unpublished letter.