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23.3.1930
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
My dear Lou
No, do not be offended. Your January letter did not go astray; it reached me all right and gave me, like everything I receive from you, great pleasure. I did not reply, firstly, because such remissness among friends is—alas—customary; secondly, because every free moment has been taken up with the tedious (oh, how tedious!) proof
correcting of the eighth edition of The Interpretation of Dreams; thirdly, because the difficult task of maintaining what measure of health is left to me allows me no free time at all; fourthly, because I wanted to write to you when I had some real peace of mind, e.g., on a Sunday (like today), but on each occasion someone arrived unexpectedly to prevent me from doing so; fifthly, because in any case I would much rather have talked than have written to you—as in the old days, although I now hear so much worse and find it so difficult to understand you. Enough, in view of this overwhelming accumulation of reasons you can see that it was quite impossible for me to have answered you promptly.
But now that I am writing to you at last I am delighted to observe that nothing has altered in our respective ways of approaching a theme, whatever it may be. I strike up a—mostly very simple—melody; you supply the higher octaves for it; I separate the one from the other, and you blend what has been separated into a higher unity; I silently accept the limits imposed by our subjectivity, whereas you draw express attention to them. Generally speaking we have understood each other and are at one in our opinions. Only, I tend to exclude all opinions except one, whereas you tend to include all opinions together.
Whether I shall make a new expedition this summer into the intellectual world I do not know. I would rather go walking in some beautiful forest with Anna, Wolf and my new Jo Fi (Lün's sister). But where? That is still quite uncertain. In the first place I shall probably go straight after Easter to Berlin-Tegel,