You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
15 October 1926
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
154F
Prof. Dr. Freud
Dear Dr. Binswanger,
How could I fail to write to you, not words of superfluous condolence, but from an inner urge only, since your letter has roused a memory in me - absurd, for it has never been asleep. You are right, I lost a beloved daughter when she was 27 years old,1 but I bore that loss remarkably well. It happened in 1920, when we were crushed by the misery of war, and after years of having to steel ourselves against the news that we had lost a son, or even three sons. Thus we had become resigned to what fate held in store. Two years later, however, I brought the younger child of this daughter, a little fellow of 3 or 4, to Vienna, where my childless eldest daughter took him in, and this child died - in June ‘23 - from an acute miliary tuberculosis. He was far advanced intellectually, so much so that the consultant took that into account when the diagnosis was still uncertain. For me, that child took the place of all my children and other grandchildren, and since then, since Heinele's2 death, I have no longer cared for my grandchildren, but find no enjoyment in life either. This is also the secret of my indifference - it has been called courage - towards the threat to my own life.
My fate bears some resemblance to your own, indeed, in that I too have suffered no recurrence of the neoplasm. In the other respect I hope that you will escape the resemblance. You are young enough to overcome your loss; as for me I no longer have to.
Should you come to Vienna in September ‘27, and I am still alive, I won't be in Vienna but on the Semmering,3 as in recent years. So come and see me there.4
With kind regards to you and your wife,
Yours, Freud
Cf. 122F.