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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
28.1.25
Dearest Lou*
Let us hope that the postal authorities will not continue to be unfavourably disposed towards us. My lost letter† contained all the details that were meant for you better than I can repeat them today. Fortunately, the patient will be accompanied by her lawyer, Dr. H., who is a pleasant, intelligent fellow and knows all about the case. You can trust him implicitly and can be quite open with him.
The patient herself is a woman of thirty with three children, and lives in B. She is attached to a handsome young husband, who is very much in love with her and who nevertheless is thinking of divorce; but he loves his misfortune too much to part from it. She is another case of agoraphobia, like our Frau M. In the lost letter I wrote, to quote my own words, ‘she is probably a quite similar piece of goods’. She has had various analytic experiences of a superficial sort, and has just emerged from a scandalous six-month treatment with Stekel, the details of which you will learn from her to satiety. It will be a difficult job, and I do not know if she is worth it. But it's worth trying. I arranged with her husband—and Dr. H. promised to guarantee this—that there should be no interference of any sort with the treatment. It is to be the last attempt, but they are prepared to allow sufficient time for it. After six months you will be asked whether you recommend a continuation of the treatment, and then further decisions will be taken.
A regrettable consequence of the loss of my letter is that you have destroyed my calculations as to fees. In that letter, so unfortunately lost, I threatened you with the rupture of our long-standing relationship, if you asked for less than 20 marks. Now I hear from B. that you have agreed to 10, and I suppose I must be thankful that you did not say 5. I have at least succeeded in preparing them for a fee of 15-20 marks, after telling them that 10 was the minimum, to which you had consented because you thought th