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Vienna, November 25, 1900
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear Wilhelm,
My suspicion that your long silence meant bad news was correct after all. I am accustomed to this from past times when it used to mean that you yourself were feeling very bad. Fortunately it is no longer that!
I myself would not have waited so long with my inquiry if I had not promised myself at the beginning of this year's exchange of letters to refrain under all circumstances from complaining to you so much. You see how quickly we then lose track of each other; after all, you yourself write, “I did not reply because I had nothing to report, at least nothing pleasant.” If one had to wait for that! So perhaps something in between: just a little complaining, but writing more frequently.
Your news caused me great pain. So it does not recede, but comes and goes periodically and probably adds something with each new phase of advance. I believe that is always the case with paranoia. There is no cure for it other than its subsidence with the preservation of repression. In comparison to this, its periodic nature is a blessing.
With regard to the other matter, which provides just as little cause for good humor (the maternal on the other side), I know most of it au fui et à mesure [as it happens]. I see Oscar very frequently because Minna has chosen him as her physician. And you know him in this respect — and we are in agreement about him in this respect — that his reliability and dedication leave nothing to be desired. So we are really exploiting him thoroughly now. Not everything about her condition is entirely clear, nor is the degree to which worries are justified. I do not want to fill this letter with the details; after all, we shall soon have the answer. The most striking feature is that her pulse rate is 130 and beyond.
In my work I am not exactly at a standstill; on a subterranean level it is probably proceeding quite well, but it is certainly not a time of harvest, of conscious mastery. There probably will be no mo