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Vienna, June 9, 1898
IX., Berggasse 19
My dear Wilhelm,
Many thanks for your beautiful picture! My brother made the astute observation that the photographer must know you; this is actually so, as you told me. It will get the place of honor on my desk, the place you hold in my friendship.
Many thanks, too, for your critique. I know that you have undertaken a thankless task. I am reasonable enough to recognize that I need your critical help, because in this instance I myself have lost the feeling of shame required of an author. So the dream is condemned.1 Now that the sentence has been passed, however, I would like to shed a tear over it and confess that I regret it and that I have no hopes of finding a better one as a substitute. As you know, a beautiful dream and no indiscretion — do not coincide. Let me know at least which topic it was to which you took exception and where you feared an attack by a malicious critic. Whether it is my anxiety, or Martha, or the Dalles,2 or my being without a fatherland? So that I can omit what you designate in a substitute dream, because I can have dreams like that to order.
Martha and Mathilde left last night; since then it has been desolate here. The child had a fever for a day and a half and her tonsils were coated, but ultimately she was lively and in high spirits. Robertchen, by the way, is delightful.
With the continuation of the dream [book] something is amiss3 (Ida will explain the word to you). True, I have already gotten to page 14, but it is impossible to publish it, perhaps even to show it to someone else. A mere trial run. For it is wretchedly difficult to set out the new psychology insofar as it pertains to the dream; it is of necessity fragmentary, and all the obscure parts which I, in a state of inertia, have so far put off, demand elucidation. I need a lot of