Letter from Freud to Fliess, July 22, 1899

Vienna, July 22, 1899
IX., Berggasse 19

Dear Wilhelm,

I leave this evening. With the approach of the special date I have become lively and cheerful. Of course, I reproach myself for not having come to Berlin. You did not insist on it firmly enough. But September is definite, although I am not entirely in agreement with your program and would much rather get acquainted with your geometry — which I can comprehend altogether more easily — before your algebra.

In reply to your questions: Martha's birthday is Wednesday, July 26. In regard to the dream [book] things are as follows: it lacked a first chapter, an introduction to the literature, which — unless I am very much mistaken — you also asked for in order to lighten the rest. This was written, was a bitter task for me, and did not turn out very satisfactorily. Most readers will get stuck in this thorny thicket and never get to see the Sleeping Beauty1 behind it. The rest, with which you are familiar, will be revised, though not very drastically. Sections dealing with the literature will be taken out; a few specific references to the literature which I have only just come upon will be scattered throughout; new dream examples will be inserted as illustrations — none of which amounts to very much. Then the last psychological chapter must be written anew: the wish theory, which, after all, provides the link with what follows; some hypotheses about sleep; coming to terms with anxiety dreams; the interrelations between the wish to sleep and the suppressed. All of it, perhaps, by way of allusions.

Now, I do not understand what you want to see, and when. Am I to send you this first chapter? And then the continued revisions, before I send them to the printer? You would be taking on a great burden without any pleasure if you still took pains with it. There has been no change in regard to the conditions of publication. Deuticke did not want to let the book go, so I decided not to betray in any way what a difficult decision this was