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Pápa, February 22, 1915
Dear Professor,
Since I am—accepting your opinion—“ignoring” self-analysis altogether, I can't tell you why I have been silent for so long; as a curiosity, however, I must tell you this much, that I am also in arrears to Frau G. for a reply in the amount of about as many days as I owe you. An interesting inhibition! N.B.: for approximately the same time I have also been scientifically sterile and incapable of work.
I don't know whether you consider the following explanation (for the acute onset of this condition) sufficient: I am now learning—as I already wrote—how to ride, and, in fact, quite seriously: in the morning I ride for one—sometimes three, even four hours with the company. This new corporeal pleasure—connected with some anxiety and pain—seems to have wrenched great quantities of libido from other (mental and emotional) spheres. From this experience I remembered, however, that as a child I was uncommonly strongly “motor” and especially indefatigable when playing “horsey.” Later I transformed this into an interest in dancing, i.e., in neurotic inhibition at dance parties; in theory and as an observer I am still a devoté of dancing—I even invent new dances in fantasy. A large piece of motor pleasure seems to have evaded sublimation and been repressed. I believe that a part of the “neurasthenic” symptoms that I produced can be