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9.5.1931
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
My dear Lou
Every day at least a line. Today I feel I must write to you, for your letter surprised and disturbed me. I have always found you—I will not say resigned, but at least raised above everything that happened around you and to you, and now it seemed to me you were behaving like someone in a violent fury of indignation. Why? Because I had taken a further step on the stony path which leads us out of this existence? But I do not understand; that was after all to be expected, was in some form or other inevitable and will soon be repeated. Indeed the provisional nature of the reprieve and the definitive nature of the final departure were never so clear to me as now. Every expression of regret would run counter to the reminder that I have possessed a large number of those things which men hold dear.
I had read your work up to p. 49 before the flood broke, and it has not yet fully receded. The all too personal title must go, the work as a whole must be available for others. As far as I have got I have enjoyed it very much. For the first time I have been struck by something exquisitely feminine in your intellectual approach. When in my annoyance at the eternal ambivalences I am prepared to leave everything higgledy-piggledy, you tidy everything up, put everything in order and show that it is possible to be quite comfortable in that way too.
With most cordial greetings,
Yours,
Freud