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Vienna, February 1, 1912
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
I have not received a letter for a long time in which the truths have pressed as much as they have in your last. Fortunately, they are not a lot of sad ones.
So, first your Rooster-Man. It is simply exquisite and will have a great future. But I hope you will not believe that I simply want to confiscate him for myself; that would be too low (of me). Only, you shouldn't publish it
until I can come out with the return of totemism in childhood so that I can refer to it there. You will I hope still fill the gap about whether the threat of castration occurred before or after the adventure.1 It is very significant. I have had similarly audacious thoughts about castration as you have. We would certainly like to know whether the jealous little father-man of the Darwinian primal family really castrated the boys before he contented himself with chasing them away.2
Your plan of work seems to me to be very practicable, and I hope to see its execution follow soon.
What you report to me about the changes in your relationship with Frau G. was not surprising at all. I had presumed that it would go first one way and then the other. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that, even though it is not right. With Elma, something is, in fact, happening. We are getting further, are succeeding in penetrating and breaking through the father identification, which, in the form of prudery, was the main obstacle to the work and also constitutes a large portion of the manifest narcissism. Today I was able to observe the first sign of her ability to take part in independent thinking, with an excellent insight right away. If we succeed further and she gives up her infantilism (that is, after all, the only legitimate diagnosis), then a new situation will arise that in no way has to be connected with the old. You will also have to decide anew and to reckon with an additional factor. I do not have a high opinion of her love for you up to now; I don't k