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December 4, 1896
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear Wilhelm,
My bad time has run its course in typical fashion; I am fully occupied, with every half-hour taken, and am not in the least interested in life after death. I am dealing with something that cements your work to mine, places my structure on your base, but I have the feeling that I should not yet write about it. A bit of it will be ready in a few days — naturally, only for you. I am curious what you will say.
I am also curious to hear about your lecture and how it was received. I am so isolated here that I hear nothing about your book.
Shamefully, I must renege on one promise. Deuticke and colleagues could not get hold of the Napoleon, and I did not know a more precise title. I do not want to delay you, and ask your permission to substitute something else for it.
Your cousin, Miss G. de B., arrived and seems to have been well prepared because she is very willing. Could you perhaps unobtrusively find out from Ida who in the family or the surroundings has had a speech defect such as stuttering?1
The abstinence does me good; I oscillate between one and four [cigars] a day. Essentially I am well, because plenty of work and newly arising possibilities of resolving hysteria satisfy my inner unrest.
Our life has been very comfortable since the new living arrangements. Ida's tables are of great service to me. [I wonder] whether you will approve of my deriving “Ida” from “idea”?
Otherwise the world is full of wild things; stupid ones as well. The latter, however, usually are people. The first things about my work that I can disclose to you are the mottoes. The psychology of hysteria will be preceded by the proud words, Introite et hic dii sunt;2
the chapter on summation by: