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.
Karlsbad, Rudolfshof, 30.7.15
Dear Frau Andreas
I am writing from an idyll which we, my wife and I, have defiantly and stubbornly created for ourselves, but which is continually being interrupted by the demands of the times. About a week ago our eldest son wrote that a bullet had gone through his cap and another had grazed his arm, neither of which, however, had interfered with his activities. And today the other warrior announces that he has received his marching orders for tomorrow, also northwards. My little daughter, whom you may remember and who is staying with her eighty-year-old grandmother51 in Ischl, has written to us in concern: ‘How am I to make do for six children all by myself next year?’ Since we don't dare to look into the future, we just live for the day and try to get out of it what it is willing to yield.
Your letters are now a doubly precious reward to me for what I write to you. I say now, for I am almost entirely alone; of all my colleagues I see only Ferenczi standing out against the military influence and sticking to the group. But since he too is exiled to his garrison in Pápa, I often feel as alone as during the first ten years,52 when I was surrounded by a desert; but I was younger then and still endowed with infinite energy and perseverance. The product of these months will probably take the form of a book consisting of twelve essays, beginning with one on instincts and their vicissitudes. But I seem to remember that I have already told you about this. The book is just finished except for the necessary revision caused by the arranging and fitting in of the individual essays.
Every time I read one of your letters of appraisal I am amazed at your talent for going beyond what has been said, for completing it and making it converge at some distant point. Naturally I do not always agree with you. I so rarely feel the need for synthesis. The unity of this world seems to me so self-evident as not to need emphasis. What interests me is the separation