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Im Feld, Küsnach bei Zürich,
4 June 1909
Dear Professor Freud,
In accordance with your wish I sent you a telegram1 this morning, framing it as clearly as I could. At the moment I didn't know what more to say. Spielrein2 is the person I wrote you about. She was published in abbreviated form in my Amsterdam lecture of blessed memory.3 She was, so to speak, my test case, for which reason I remembered her with special gratitude and affection. Since I knew from experience that she would immediately relapse if I withdrew my support, I prolonged the relationship over the years and in the end found myself morally obliged, as it were, to devote a large measure of friendship to her, until I saw that an unintended wheel had started turning, whereupon I finally broke with her. She was, of course, systematically planning my seduction, which I considered inopportune. Now she is seeking revenge. Lately she has been spreading a rumour that I shall soon get a divorce from my wife and marry a certain girl