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13 May 1938
Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19
Dear Jones,
Anna tells me she concludes from your last letter that you expected a reply to your letter for my birthday,1 and I am therefore writing to you, but also because I am sitting here in my study being absolutely idle and otherwise useless. We had decided to disregard this birthday and to postpone it to 6 June, July, August, etc., in short, to a date after our liberation, and indeed, I have not acknowledged any of the letters, telegrams, etc. that arrived. Now it seems that we shall land in England in May after all. I say “it seems” for, despite all promises, uncertainty is the all-controlling factor. Two days ago Princess Marie, with her touching devotion, telephoned that she intends to come to Vienna on Monday (that is, 16 May) to escort us across the border as far as Paris; yesterday we had to ask her to lower her hopes, as we still cannot specify the date of our departure.
Another reason for not answering you is my general inhibition to write these days. You may remember that I once traced the so-called “physiological feeblemindedness of women” (Moebius) to the fact that women were forbidden to think about sexual matters.2 As a result they took a dislike to thinking altogether. How such a restriction must affect me, who has always been used to expressing what I believed. But how very much your cordial letter pleased me would have been the first sentence that you would have heard from me at Victoria Station.
I wish I could arrive in England in better condition. To be sure I am traveling with my personal physician, but I am in need of several doctors, and soon after my arrival I will have to find an ear specialist and consult the jaw specialist, whose name Pichler gave me. Sometimes one even tells