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Budapest, May 13, 1916
Grand Hôtel Royal Nagyszálloda
Dear Professor,
It seems that I will not be finished with my inner affairs without external aid. To be sure, I have discontinued all self-analysis for a long time.— Apparently things have been fermenting in me unremittingly; I am incapable of any decision (and any work). The worsening probably dates from the day of the conversation about the solution to the question of where to live.
Frau G. understands my struggle—and today she found for me a one-room apartment in a cottage district which can be rented for the months of June to September.
I hear from Dr. Lévy (who knows it from his sister-in-law, Frau von Freund)1 that you want to stop analyses already in June. That is very significant for me, because then I have to arrange my vacation (which I want to spend in analysis) differently.—Please write to me immediately, if possible, a card with information pertaining to this.
The article about war neuroses has been published in Hungarian,2 but doesn't seem to have made any special impression.—
I have a barracks full of epileptics and see many seizures. I can't avoid getting the impression that here it is also a case of an arrangement, similar to that of sleep (falling asleep). The essential thing in it is the peculiar change in breathing and circulation (the latter is secondary). What the epileptic wants to say with this sudden switch in innervation I don't know. I presume he is simulating the apnea3 of the intrauterine period. In numerous cases I was able to determine erection as an accompanying symptom. And the whole thing is—still very unclear. (As is well known, most seizures come during sleep! Perhaps it has to do with the degree of regression.)4
The affair of a local mass murderer,5 about whom you have certainly heard or read, is being interpreted by the patients in analysis as heroism. Proof of the identity of hero and criminal.
Frau G., who does not have a reliable connection with Elma, is asking by way of me for the