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[Göttingen, 3 May 1926]
Dear Professor,
With the thick underlining of that word I have really expressed everything I wanted to. But the underlinings adequate for that purpose would have to be so thick that one could not go on writing. And besides that, as I sit here and think of you, I am overcome with sadness. Everything distresses me: that I cannot get to see you on the 6th,190 whereas many others are able to do so; that you for your part will not get any present from me (for what would be the sense of that!), and that I not only would have appeared with empty hands, but that I also feel this emptiness so bitterly; that you have been ill and yet are working again; that everything is breathing and smelling of spring—this year very early and in full perfection—and that you again have to stay on in town until the loveliest time of year is past; that you are certainly smoking, when you certainly oughtn't to be doing so, and on the other hand I am overcome with fury when I think that anyone has the right to forbid you this pleasure.
One could scarcely think of a less appropriate birthday letter than this long list of complaints, but it is really the case that I have such vast wishes for the 6th, to which life will pay no heed, and I know with such certainty (and this is of absolutely no avail) that I would give a large portion of what remains of my life to a fairy godmother, were she able to fulfil any of these wishes for you.
While you were in the Cottage Sanatorium I read and re-read your book,191 and meant to write to you about it, but did not manage to do so. It contrasts with what you wrote on the Semmering in the new features you have introduced and the further investigations you have pursued. It makes such an impression of unending vitality, showing psycho-analysis in a continual state of flux, never in danger of falling into rigid systematization. It is not only a ‘young science’, but one for all time, with the oldest member leading the way—a science for the young