Letter from Freud to Fliess, November 9, 1899

Vienna, November 9, 1899
IX., Berggasse 19

Dear Wilhelm,

So I was right, after all, to be struck by your silence and regard it as ominous. I was well on the way to formulating an explanation for myself; I discarded it, however, because I know you to be free of all nervous Schigan.1 I felt that something in the dream book had very much put you off. I think, however, that among friends it is not necessary to adhere too strictly to the stipulation that each should apprise the other only of favorable events. Where would this leave us if fate is not favorably inclined? I have always behaved differently; for weeks I have been complaining to you whenever I had reason to, risking the danger of alienating you, yet expecting that you would not be alienated; though I surely would much rather tell you about happy and hopeful things.

If it is a question of something you wish to keep secret from your family and larger circles, you need only give the word — as you did this time. I know how to keep quiet when there is a reason, and have not failed to prove it on this occasion.

So, poor Paulinchen is suffering so much, and I do not even know her. My sister's little one, who was so wretched and run down half a year ago, is now full of vigor and mischief; and so, in a case like this one, our first and foremost thought is that children get over most things. When Mathilde had diphtheria for the second time, a medical university colleague came to the house at number 19. He inquired, as the concierge told us later, whether the Freud girl was already dead. That was very Christian. But the girl is still alive and is growing appropriately in length and fortunately also in width. An epidemic of feverish colds raged through all the others, and some of them also had diarrhea. The worst of it was that a few did not have enough with one attack. Just today Sophie once again began to have