Letter from Freud to Fliess, May 28, 1899

Vienna, May 28, 1899
IX., Berggasse 19

Dear Wilhelm,

Yes, indeed, we are still alive, in spite of all the “head shaking,”1 and intend to make the most of it. Your presentation should mark one day on the calendar in red, because — and this you do not know — it was humanly impossible to remember the powerful stuff on the basis of an oral communication or even to have an overview of

it. The “Screen Memories” are in Jena with Ziehen; the wine has arrived and is resting, according to your directions; but the dream [book] is suddenly taking shape, without any special motivation, but this time I am sure of it.2 I have decided that I cannot use any of the disguises, nor can I afford to give up anything because I am not rich enough to keep my finest and probably my only lasting discovery to myself. In this dilemma I behaved like the rabbi in the story of the cock and the hen. Do you know it? A husband and wife who owned one cock and one hen decided to celebrate the holidays by roasting a fowl, but they could not make up their minds which was to be sacrificed and therefore turned to the rabbi. “Rebbe, what are we to do? We have only one cock and one hen. If we kill the cock, the hen will pine; and if we kill the hen, the cock will pine. But we want to eat a fowl on the holiday; rabbi, what are we to do?” The rabbi: “So kill the cock.” — “But then the hen will pine.” — “Yes, that's true; so kill the hen.” — “But rabbi, then the cock will pine.” — The rabbi: “So let him pine!”

So the dream [book] will be. That this Austria is supposed to perish in the next two weeks made my decision easier. Why should the dream perish with it? Unfortunately, to frighten one off, the gods have placed the [dream] literature before the presentation. The first time I got stuck in it. This time I shall fight my way through; there is nothing of consequence in it anyway. No other work of mine has been so completely my own, my own dung heap, my seedling and a nova species mihi on top of it. After the lit