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Budapest, [October 3, 1910]1
VII., Erzsébet-körút 54
Dear Professor,
I was anticipating your letter with no slight tension—I almost wrote “anxiety.” I have already tried to familiarize myself—in fantasy—with all eventualities and even prepared myself for the situation in which, with respect to the disappointment that I caused you, you would no longer find it worthwhile to be interested in me, etc. My “heroic” plan was to remain loyal to you without consideration for our personal relations, that is to say, for your change of heart. It is well that heroism remained dispensable and that in the tone of your letter I found the same warmth and friendliness, and in its content the same honesty, for which I was always so grateful to you. Already during the trip, but even more so since my return home, I have analyzed what I did and did not do and have found the cause of the inhibitions—just as you did—in my infantile attitude. On this occasion I have also rather ruthlessly brought to light the resistance against my own homosexual drive components (and the uncommon sexual overestimation of women which goes along with it), and I believe I have gained much personal and some scientific advantage from this.
To this extent we are also in agreement about me. But I must contradict you on some essential points and—with reference to ψα. candor—clarify the issue as follows:
It is not correct that I have always sought only the great scholar in you—and was disappointed by the realization of human weaknesses, etc. The letters that I wrote to Frau G. from Italy could prove the opposite to you. To the extent that you concerned yourself with scientific matters altogether (and you were kind enough to share with me everything that you were occupied with at the time), I had to be astonished and pleased about the wealth of scientific novelties—and so I was. It didn't occur to me to ask for more.
What made me inhibited and taciturn—and at the same time somewhat stupid was the same thing that you are co