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Vienna, January 10, 1910
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
Today I have you to thank for much and little to give you in return. Analyses and writings, as you now do them, are very significant events for one's own person, and the other—if he comes into it at all—has nothing to do but keep a respectful silence.1 Favete linguis.2 I can hardly admire perspicacity, for I know that it is made up of honesty and firm decision. Certainly you are right in every instance.
Your dream and attempt at clarification in the case of Frau G. naturally belong together. In the analysis you seek to free yourself from the inner drives from which Frau G. has constructed a reproach against you. As to what is real, I have to say that you were by and large undoubtedly correct with your disclosure to the beloved woman. It belongs to the ABC of our worldview that the sexual life of a man can be something different from that of a woman, and it is only a sign of respect when one does not conceal this from a woman. Whether the requirement of absolute truthfulness does not sin against the postulate of expediency and against the intentions of love I would not like to respond to in the negative without qualification, and I urge caution. Truth is only the absolute goal of science, but love is a goal of life which is totally independent of science, and conflicts between both of these major powers are certainly quite conceivable. I see no necessity for principled and regular subordination of one to the other.
I fear that not much new will result from an investigation of what is constitution and what is repression in the sexual character of women. The question will probably be answered with bisexuality and the knowledge that there are women who are capable of everything. A large piece of sexual repression is inextricable from the character of a woman of culture [Kulturweib].
The illumination of your medical tendencies in your dream was of great personal interest to me. This need to help is lacking in me, and I no