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17 June 1913
Pension Gerö, Lipót-körút 10
Budapest V
Dear Professor Freud,
Rank writes to me that you will arrange a meeting when Ferenczi and I come to Vienna. That will be next Saturday week, and we return on the Sunday night.
I am doing my best in the analysis and think it is going on satisfactorily. Ferenczi discovers in me very strong aggressive tendencies which I have reacted to by too much suppression and submissiveness, and which revenge themselves in various impulsive tendencies. It is to be hoped that in the future all this will be better balanced.
The Cobenzel fatigue was thus determined. On the evening before, my wife and I had walked up, and I had half-jokingly said that the private foot-way belonged to us—as a symbol of something between us that was left over from the wreckage. The next morning she got up at three, fetched Jones from his hotel, and took him up the same path—as if to show me that not the slightest bond was left between us. That evening I proposed to show you the path, but you preferred the road you already knew. That must unconsciously have struck my resentment at being a plaything in the hands of fate, at being allowed no independent decision or activity. What a trivial thing will affect one when it touches a sensitive spot!
The wounds are rapidly healing now, though, and I am coming to realise that this break is the best thing not only for Loe, but also for myself. It is doubtful if we could ever have made a satisfactory life of it, even apart from Jones' existence. We have both worked off our infantile sexuality at the expense of the other, and must now both face a more adult form of life. The future is at present dark for both of us, but wide open for possibilities of happiness or at least satisfactoriness. Now that I love her less, I can afford to feel more friendly and kindly towards her, and I will do all in my power to further her happiness.
I have just read your “Zwei Kinderlügen”, which I had heard in the Vorlesung [university lect