Letter from Sigmund Freud to Eduard Silberstein, April 22, 1928

[to the President of the B'nai B'rith Lodge in Braila]

Vienna, April 22, 1928

Honored Mr. President and dear Brother,1

I was deeply touched to learn of the honor your Lodge has bestowed on my late childhood friend, Dr. Eduard Silberstein. I spent many years of my boyhood and young manhood in intimate friendship, indeed in fraternal fellowship, with him. Without a teacher, we learned Spanish together, read Cervantes, and signed our letters to each other with the names of the two perros en el hospital de Sevilla: Scipione and Berganza. We also shared more serious interests. Later, life and physical distance separated us, but early friendship can never be forgotten.

I would also see him from time to time when he came to Vienna, and once had occasion to attend to his first wife.2

You are right to acclaim him as a man of distinction. He was thoroughly kind-hearted and had a gentle sense of humor that must certainly have made it easier for him to bear the vicissitudes of life.

Please be assured of the best wishes of an ailing seventy-two-year-old to you, and to all the Brothers of the Lodge, in W. B. and E.3

Yours,
Freud