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Budapest, October 17, 1916
11:15 P.M.
Dear Professor,
I didn't get to write until this hour because, instead of my old, spacious room, I was quartered—for the time being in a dark unlivable (?) one and wasn't able to move into my accustomed room until this afternoon. There were certainly also inner reasons for postponing letter writing, so that, for instance, I wanted to let some time expire before I decide to give a report, in order that I won't give you a false picture of the situation which has occurred.
I will begin with the main thing. The first meeting with Gisela1 was (on my part) cool. But in the afternoon and evening we took a walk in the same area which had been the scene of our union in 1900; I thawed out there, or, more precisely, it came to a sudden outburst of feeling with proposal of marriage, images of the future, etc. The following day likewise resistance at first, then thawing out. Coitus was (because of a disturbance; herpes on the penis) not satisfying—although the otherwise usual exhaustion after intercourse was absent this time.
Breathing through the nose is almost completely free, the way I haven't had it since time immemorial. I avoid hypochondriacal feelings fairly well with the aid of narcissistic interpretation; from time to time I still touch my goiter and take at look at my exophthalmos.2 What is striking is the abatement of the feeling of tiredness which otherwise comes over me so quickly and which must in large part have been narcissistic oversensitivity. The compulsion to drink and—perhaps—also the fast eating are much less pronounced than before. If they do appear, then I can always trace them to a current depression in mood.