Letter from Freud to Fliess, July 8, 1899

Vienna, July 8, 1899
IX., Berggasse 19

Dear Wilhelm,

In Aussee there was a folk poet whose saying we still frequently quote: Things never turn out as we intend, they always turn out as they will. I was prepared for a long separation after Innsbruck, and now I shall probably see you very soon, although the occasion is highly undesirable.

You know that two nights of traveling are no more difficult for me than, for instance, for your father-in-law. The simplest thing would have been to leave this evening if I had not promised Oscar to visit him tonight in Hacking1 where the (repetition of a) cancellation would certainly have aroused his suspicion. Since something that is not going to change is involved, I think it is only right that you choose or designate the day. Not all days will be equally suitable for you, whereas for me it makes very little difference whether it is a weekday or a Sunday. If it is a matter of one day, I can hide it so well here that except for Alexander no one will notice my absence at all.

I know, of course, that I shall not be able to do very much for you; moreover, the psychiatric significance of the event is diminished by the circumstance that it has to do not so much with new psychic formations as with physical decline. But these are not arguments against [my coming]; rather, you will let me know whether and when; after all, all means of communication are open to you from tomorrow, Sunday, on.

Let me acknowledge your share in the dream [book] by enclosing the proof of the first page. A strange feeling, in the case of such a child of sorrow! I have great difficulties with it; I cannot manage more than two hours a day without calling on Friend Marsala for help. “He” deludes me into thinking that things are not really so bleak as they appear to me when sober. Sunshine, too, has disappeared again; it did not accompany me from Berchtesgaden. As a