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Vienna, January 19, 1910
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
It is settled that I won't turn you down again. I have no reason to this time. I only want to orient you. The Binswangers are not a strain and not—satisfying. They will still be with us Sunday noon and afternoon. In the evening they are going to1 Obersteiner's.2 We would be free into the wee hours of the evening. Only, I would be grateful for the afternoon,; you must choose.
Cordially,
Freud
Freud often used the symbol of three crosses before the names of persons toward whom he was ambivalent. According to Jeffrey Masson (Fliess Letters, November 5, 1899, n 1 p. 382),
“This sign was sometimes chalked on the inside of doors in peasant houses to protect against danger”.
Heinrich Obersteiner (1847-1922), head of the neurological institute and professor of anatomy and the pathology of the nervous system at the University of Vienna. In 1885 Freud had worked in his private clinic for a month. See Freud's letter to Martha Bernays of June 8, 1885 (Letters, pp. 105f]; Freud 1887d (p. 929) and 1887e (Nachtragsband, pp. 105f); and and , “Sigmund Freud, Heinrich Obersteiner und die Diskussionen über Hypnose und Kokain,” Jahibuch der Psychoanalyse, vol. 23 (Stuttgart, 1988), pp. 105-137.