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1003 Seestrasse, Küsnach-Zürich,
7 December 1912
Dear Professor Freud,
Since you have taken so badly to my “new style,” I will tune my lyre a few tones lower, for the present.
Meanwhile, the Bergmann affair has settled itself. He has effectively discharged you, and has been sufficiently punished for it. In view of the fact that the contract between the I. ΨA A. and Bergmann does
not stipulate that your directorship is the indispensable precondition for our connection with the Zentralblatt, we are committed by the wording of the contract to the subscription. I am convinced that we are not legally in a position to default on our obligations. In these circumstances our provisional contract strikes me as extremely favourable: we can withdraw the Bulletin forthwith, and the price for the remaining issues will be reduced by half. Bergmann could easily have insisted on more rigorous conditions. As I said, the agreement is provisional and can still be modified on our side. But this would involve a court of arbitration, and in the end we might get a worse deal for lack of the above formula. I therefore plead for acceptance.
Further, I would like you to know that I have designs on reviewing Adler's book.1 I have succeeded in descending into its depths, where I found some delightful things that deserve to be hung aloft. The man really is slightly dotty. “To arrange” = “to miracle,”2 for instance. The “junctim”3 (so far I haven't plumbed its meaning) recalls the “Tetem” in Fried. Th. Vischer's A. E.4 I'm also reminded of the “mongoose.”5 The style is utterly “praecox.” The conclusions are significant: in so far as a man has no masculine protest6 against women (woman =