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Thumsee, August 7, 1901,1
Dear Wilhelm,
For the first time in three weeks the weather is disagreeable today and precludes any other activity; tomorrow we are going to Salzburg fór a performance of Don Giovanni, to which Ferstel got us tickets; that is how I come to be answering you at once today, or at any rate begin to answer.
First, business, then something serious; and pleasure at the end.
Mrs. D. would be an excellent substitute for L.G. To judge from your earlier reports, she would certainly be a suitable person for this treatment and therefore a better-than-average success could be anticipated. But I am not going back into harness before September 16 for the sake of any patient, known or unknown, and by then she may no longer have her paroxysm. I do not count on anyone until I have my hands on him. My clients are sick people, hence especially irrational and suggestible. Incidentally, the next season interests me especially. I have only one patient, a youth with obsessional neurosis, who is, so to speak, certain; and my nice old lady, who was a small but sure source of income, died during the vacation.
I enclose a testimonial by Father G. on the explicit wish of Martha, who sees that I am writing to you.
Winternitz2 is an opportunist, a regular turncoat, and therefore especially interesting from a symptomatic viewpoint. It has always greatly astonished me that you should have the large success that dazzles people only after forty. It really could have come to you earlier without doing any psychic damage to you. I would like to have it myself because of the material gains, but it has failed to come about and, I suspect, will ultimately fail to come about.
I am continuously and with sympathy following the sad state of affairs in Kalt[enleutgeben] by corresponding with Oscar. I have always feared that the two of you would have very little in common after the death of the parents; but I cannot really with all my heart take your side, that is, the side of both of you. Osca