Letter from Lou Andreas-Salomé to Freud, May 6, 1933

Göttingen, on 6th May 1933

Dear, dear Professor Freud,*

Best of all I would like to go on repeating these words, as if they contained everything with which my heart overflows and which I would like to set before you on your birthday morning. For somehow letters are not possible any more—one cannot convey anything in them.

Yes, simply to get away, straightaway, to be able to spend just one day with you—never have I so ardently desired it before.

For this reason too you have never had so brief a greeting from here.

Would Anna perhaps send me a few lines about how you all are? So that you won't be cross with me, I will not neglect to tell you that we are all well here. Indeed I had an almost incredibly good period with my work,223 in which everything fairly flowed along and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. (Perhaps that is the greatest source of happiness—at least next to the spring, which is so radiantly beautiful here now, just as though there were no shadows in life.)

In affectionate devotion,
Your Lou