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[Göttingen] 4.v.27
Dear Professor,
All best possible wishes for the 6th of May! Perhaps you are spending it, not in dusty Vienna, but somewhere in the country? I have not heard anything for so long, because the wretched worthless Anna has not reported anything since before her trip to Berlin, for which I have thrust her out of my so-called heart. But it doesn't matter much, since while departing thence she had to leave her little book193 behind, which serves as an admirable and permanent representative of her presence! I go on reading it with the same pleasure, and you too will have got the same pleasure from seeing Anna in print. It is really splendid that she in her most special field should be sending out such a flourishing branch from the sturdy parent tree. To turn into such a daughter: that is something indeed!
Altogether it seems to me that it must be a source of pleasure to you to observe the spring-like burst of productivity now going on in the psycho-analytic world. I have not yet read the very latest publications, but I have made a careful study of everything up to the very latest, and this gave me a strong impression of the vigour of the new generation and what lively discussions their views have given rise to. (I still regret missing Anna's discussions with the colleagues194 in Berlin; Eitingon described them as ‘truly stimulating’.)
Today we have our first brilliant summer day. Hitherto the weather has kept up the usual irritating spring behaviour, which is traditional in Germany: to serve up something nice, which is then snatched away again—somewhat as it used to be in childhood when most of the things on the table where the birthday presents were displayed were kept ‘for later on’. I am stretching my old bones in the sun today, and my husband is doing the same. This brought us to discuss the fact that old age really has its ‘sunny aspects’, which are not so perceptible at other times of life. In this respect I actually go so far that I am frankly curious