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Vienna, May 5, 1932
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
I talked with your wife for a while on my birthday, and reexperienced with satisfaction the phenomenon that is familiar to me. Being together with her after such long interruptions, we are immediately able to be intimate and to exchange intimacies. Age has changed nothing in her special charm.
I was unable to reply earlier to your letter of May 1; it also didn't press me, because I was so certain of the decision.—
I am sorry that you are so easily able to renounce the presidency; I would like to insist on it for you. In the last few years you have without a doubt gone back into the isolation which you had so brilliantly overcome as a leader and teacher in Budapest; the presidency should have the effect on you of a drastic measure, to move you again to convivial participation and to the acceptance of the role of leader to which you are entitled. If you assert your disinclination or slight suitability for practical measures to be a hindrance, then don't forget that willing assistance is at your disposal in both of the vice presidents and in Anna as secretary. According to a sensible recommendation of Eitingon's a third vice [president's] position is supposed to be created for Brill at the Congress.1 But you should leave the island of dreams which you inhabit with your fantasy children and mix in with the struggle of men.
Enticed by the advantages of concentration, and dissatisfied with Feni-chel,2 I have decided to transfer the editorship of the journals to Vienna. Federn and Hartmann3 will take over the International [Zeitschrift], Kris4