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No excitements can be promised in this chapter, since there were none. Freud led a quiet and regular life, and in all these years the only thing that disturbed his equanimity was the recurrent dissension among his followers, an account of which has been given earlier.1
We may begin with a description of the physical environment of Freud's life. The Berggasse, so called because it slopes steeply down from a main street, consisted of massive eighteenth-century houses, typically Viennese, in which there were a few shops. The ground floor of Nr. 19 had a butcher's shop. The butcher's first name was Sigmund and his plate affixed on one side of the large entrance doors contrasted a little curiously with that of Prof. Dr. Sigm. Freud on the opposite side. The entrance to the main house was very wide, so that a horse and carriage could drive straight through it into the garden and stable behind. On the left as one entered were the concierge's quarters. I used to find it strange that, like other Viennese burghers, Freud had no latchkey to his house and had to awaken the concierge to let him in if he returned after ten o'clock. On the right there was a flight of half-a-dozen steps leading to the professional flat of three rooms which Freud occupied from 1892 to 1908. The windows of these rooms gave on to the garden behind. It was a separate flat which had previously been occupied by Viktor Adler, the founder of the Austrian Socialist party; Freud had once visited him there with a friend of Adler's. A noble flight of low stone steps then led to the next floor, called the mezzanine, and that is where Freud and his family dwelt.
On May 6, 1954, the World Federation for Mental Health, in virtue of a unanimous resolution passed a few months before, affixed on 19 Berggasse, Freud's old domicile, a tablet bearing this inscription (in German):