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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
4. 4. 34
Postscript to my letter of yesterday.
As soon as I had sent off my letter it occurred to me that I had made a mistake in it and that I had written Θaλaσσa
with a second λ. As far as I can judge it must have been a slip against my better knowledge.1 But I soon understood its motivation. I had been irritated by the little inaccuracies in your essay. I am always very touchy about little things.
(Ferency, Edward Jones, Subconscious): instead of telling you this outright, I quoted the anecdote from Xenophon. But love intervened and said: Probably you are not to blame for these little errors. It's not as easy for you as for others to correct your proofs. The Subconscious may well have been the result of your secretary's not hearing you correctly, and anyway I don't like criticising you. You shall therefore receive atonement and the best atonement is to make a little error oneself, which you will notice and charge me with. That is how the Θaλλaσσa arose and this is the explanation for it. Besides I have always been proud of how much Greek I have remembered (choruses from Sophocles, passages from Homer).
Ever yours
Freud
Actually, Freud had not made a slip but spelled the word correctly.