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Budapest, October 30, 1909
VII., Erzsebét-körút 54
Dear Professor,
I want to share with you a very funny story about symptomatic action. The passages that I have underlined in blue,1 however, must be made
unrecognizable if you want to publish it with the other things. Better yet, eliminate my name altogether.
Frau Isolde, whom I am eagerly at work analyzing, told me recently that she had given her Coffee maker (“Non-Plus-Ultra,” it's called), which, in addition to other features, also announces the end of the brewing process with a kind of bird's chirping, to my brother-in-law (my eldest sister's husband)2 as a present; he liked the machine so much that she was unable to resist the desire to give it to him. I told her that was a very surprising thing; indeed, she had liked that machine very much herself, and I expressed the supposition that that was a symptomatic action: through the gift of the coffeemaker she had clearly made known her inclination to give her love to the brother-in-law. I reminded her that, just before she told [me] about the gift, she had mentioned the fact that my brother-in-law's and my sister's marriage was not as happy as he deserved it to be. My sister was too strict, too brusque, cold toward him, whereas he, for his part, did everything to please her, etc. Then I told her that she had told me earlier, in fact several times, that my brother-in-law was a handsome, pleasant man; I reminded her further that we had determined in other analyses that she (Isolde) had great desires to be rich, dominating, e.g., to be the proprietress of a large, comfortable household (my brother-in-law is very well-to-do and the proprietor of an estate). The extreme interest in his hearth and home can be very easily brought into harmony with the gift of a miniature hearth. She is often—I told her further—accustomed to quoting the proverb about coffee (black as night (?), hot as hell, sweet as love). But she usually makes coffee for me (I am a great lover of coffee); no