Letter from Sigmund Freud to Sándor Ferenczi, November 5, 1911

Vienna, November 5, 1911
IX., Berggasse 19

Dear friend,

Here is the letter back from Frau Jung. She has written to me in the meantime, and I responded tenderly and in detail, but without actually understanding the matter. Understanding is only just now dawning on me, since my failure to mention the “Wandlungen” comes to the fore as the only incriminating evidence. Since I am now writing on the same subject, I may have aroused mistrust through some idiosyncrasies that have to do with the roots of my work. I will in any case very carefully conceal the signs of wanting-to-find-everything-alone and hand over what is permissible. My “Postscript”,1 which seems suspicious in this light, was finished in Klobenstein before the arrival of the Jahrbuch.2 I will report more on the subject to you when Emma Jung's reply arrives. In any case motives like yours,—of wanting to know more about the father—are quite remote from her.

I am not satisfied with anything here now; physically and mentally I am in the condition that customarily accompanies intensive inner labor—or, better said, the preparation for it. It is a kind of misery; when I am well, I am seldom productive. I read, read, and it ferments; I don't know whether I will come to anything.

Only now is my practice rising over the level of two thirds. Dr. Spitz is very interesting; the window dressing is over, and he is behaving quite properly neurotic, with strong resistances. A “countess,”3 who has been in the news much lately, is supposed to enter treatment tomorrow. We are going to establish the new journal with Heller tomorrow. This is still the only chance. Stekel is sometimes so disgustingly banal that I have difficulty keeping to my decision with respect to him.

Nothing new in the world, except that the secretary from Sydney4 reports that the communications from Jung, Ellis, and me were received with “unusual” applause. He also sent offprints.

Kind regards,

Freud