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Vienna, March 3, 1918
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
I haven't answered several letters of yours because I had rather to overcome the most strenuous week of my practice: ten patients a day. Today, at least, it has been Sunday since 5 o'clock.
I am very sorry that your separate peace did not materialize—as the Russian one did today.1 Your relapse is also annoying, but it does lend hope precisely from this side, namely, diagnostic information. I assume that there has been no disturbance from the object side.
As Lévy will tell you, Freund has improved greatly this week; he has given up sarcoma and metastases and, as I suspected, unmasked himself as a postoperative hypochondria (anxiety hysteria with narcissistic content). He fears the loss of the second testicle, namely, castration. The psychotic traits have receded to the extent that I can hope to begin a normal analysis with him in the next few days. I myself would no longer call it melancholia today. One thus becomes attentive to the differences and transitions of these clinical pictures. On July 16 I saw the same thing in a patient, who will now soon be finished, after the same operation (tuberculosis).
I now have three warriors at home, but only one of them, Martin, a first lieutenant since the day before yesterday, is actually quite fresh and pleasing. Ernst is very diligent, is thoroughly bent on forcing the continuation of his studies, but looks bad, is suffering from digestive troubles, and arouses suspicion of a process in the lungs. His military service may also be an impediment to his convalescence. Oli is still not finished with his general eczema, has intestinal disturbances, and is, on the whole, grumpy. None of them knows where he will go after his leave.
“Where will the last resting place
of the one who is weary of wandering one day be?”2