Letter from Lou Andreas-Salomé to Freud, June 30, 1916

Göttingen, 30 June 1916

Dear Professor,

When your last letter arrived, I put off my reply about all kinds of topics I happened to be engaged on and about which I would like to have told you right away, but which later did not seem important enough to bother you with. The main thing, however, was that I was very sad at the news that your new book will not appear till after the end of the war. How can we all wait so long, when we know that it is all finished and ready? Is this due to lack of energy on Heller's71 part, as one of your remarks about the slow progress of the two journals would suggest? Is not Deuticke bringing out this book as well?

I have been travelling around for some time, and was within an inch of coming to Austria and Vienna, but perhaps you are no longer there anyway. Among my papers I found a part of the first draft of that little book, about whose publication you were enquiring and whose appearance would no doubt be attended with equal difficulties. It is only the first few pages—as is usual in such a case—that are sufficiently tidy and legible to send you. They will only give you a rough idea of the whole, and ideally I would like to submit every single page for your scrutiny.

For me two things are important and a great source of joy: namely, every point of agreement with you, and also the circumstance that in some cases you see things from a different angle from what I do. For it is precisely this that enables me to get my bearings: it is just like when someone gives a tug at a lead—only the lead is not a chain, but a guarantee of the way. Because I am sure of this, I do not lose my way scrambling around, but am able to pursue with happier heart than ever before the thoughts which can no longer entice me from my path.

For today my warmest greetings and good wishes to you all.

Yours,
Lou Andreas

[Enclosure]

‘Ucs‘

1. The Ucs in Psycho-analysis