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11 June 1913
Pension Gerö, Lipót-körút 10
Budapest V
Dear Professor Freud,
Thank you so very much for your kind and sympathetic letter; I echo every word of it. Like you, I feel very concerned about my wife's future, and still feel bound to her to the extent of watching over and caring for her, unless that is taken from me by Herbert Jones. I hope deeply that she will be happy, for she deserves it after so much suffering. Nothing has given me truer pleasure than the times when I have been able to make her feel happy, and it was (and is) a grief to me that these were not longer and more permanent. I shall certainly try in any event to maintain an affectionate friendship with her, and this at least should be possible. She wrote me a charming letter this week, the first real token of affection for months, and it made me so happy.
As for myself I am sure already that time will heal the wound in a healthy way, and am beginning to adapt myself to the altered situation, at least so far as consciousness is concerned. I doubt that with me work and friends (even such friends!) will fully compensate for the love I need, and feel at present inclined to marry again, perhaps in two or three years. Next time I must make a more normal choice, and shall know far better how to make a wife happy (knowledge brought by much suffering to two souls). For the immediate future, however, such thoughts must be postponed—they are day dreams—and I must apply myself to the urgent needs of the situation. There will be much to do, and I hope to have a good enough heart to do it. Then perhaps in time to come, who knows but that you may yet visit me in my house in London? That will be one stimulus the more for me to work hard.