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Vienna, May 13, 1928
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
I see it would be unfriendly not to thank you and your Society for the birthday greetings,1 even though I had requested that no notice be taken of the date up to the 75th time. But I am so free as to extend this wish to the 80th.
My main reaction on the festive occasion was my astonishment that I have become so old. I haven't noticed any difference in the 73rd year in relation to the earlier ones. The prosthesis makes a fool of me and torments me just as before. And in the face of that—so wretchedly can interests dry up—everything else retreats.
Today Anna is—a weekend excursion—in Berlin, in order to argue around with Bernfeld, who has got things to the point where they want to terminate the analytic training of pedagogues. Bernfeld is abetting the reactionary cause as a proper nihilist, Anna is fighting honestly for lay and pedagogic analysis. You will have read with satisfaction how liberally our Indian friends have expressed themselves about lay analysis.2 You are right, Eitingon's heart isn't in it; he finds it necessary to assume a friendly attitude out of consideration for Anna and me. He was here for a few days as usual, and I made use of his presence to paint him a picture of a bleak future for psychoanalysis if it doesn't know how to create a place for itself outside of medicine.
The Verlag now has a nice place in the stock exchange building, is being generously led by Storfer, and would actually only need one thing, or one person, namely Anton v. Freund. If only he hadn't died on us! We would