Freud & Co.1

You speak a language that I understand not: My life stands in the level of your dreams …

The earliest of all Freud's works, his first letter at the age of about 7, ca. 1863, was written to his half-brother Emanuel. It is a response to a lost previous letter and Freud writes: ‘I was glad to receive the letter from your dear son, but I am very sorry that I did not understand any of it. Now I am trying to write a few lines to you.’2 We can only guess at the misunderstanding. Perhaps Emanuel's dear son had written to Freud in English, which would have been another example of the rivalry between the boys and an assertion of the older boy's superiority. The puzzled younger boy's response is touching and skilful. He avoids a pointless confrontation, switching his attention to another person, another line of inquiry.

This may be an example of the best way to deal with this photograph too. It is too dark and austere to yield many details and there is scanty outside evidence about the sitters’ lives. The data about the print itself is simply this. It was produced in postcard format, but was never posted and on the back of the card only the names ‘Emanuel und Bertha’ have been written. The photo turned up among papers left by Tini Maresch, Mathilde Freud's home-help and companion. There are no other definitely identified photos of the old Emanuel or his children, so whoever wrote their names on the back would either have known them personally or been informed by someone who did. The only other attributed image of Emanuel - and perhaps Bertha