Budapest, December 9, 1916
Grand Hôtel Royal
Nagyszálloda

Dear Professor,

I have kept back the enclosed letter because I noticed very well the neurotic defiance which expresses itself in the letter's concluding sentences. But since this reticence resulted in an inhibition in our correspondence altogether, I have decided to send in those notes after all.

The only thing I have to add is that my abstinence from the encounter with Gizella still persists, my sadness about it has abated but only made room for a general apathy, and that the physical symptoms and the inability to accomplish anything persist.

I rationalized the cessation of our correspondence by the assertion that I must now decide about the future without being influenced from any quarter (neither by the moral obligation toward G. nor by your advice).—