Letter from Sigmund Freud to Martha Bernays, December 16, 1883

Hotel Stadt Freiberg, Leipzig, 7:30 P.M.
December 16, 1883

My sweet princess

Isn't this absurd? I have just been laughing out loud. Isn't it amazing that I am suddenly writing to you under a printed letterhead and smoking a ten-pfennig cigar tasting of straw? And that I have only six kreutzer in my pocket! Instead of the usual Austrian money I have silver and gold marks whose value impresses me so little that I would be tempted to spend the whole lot today if it weren't so dark that I daren't go out. I am going to write to you now with as much leisure and peace as I wrote last in a hurry, for it is only 7:45 and I have four hours to myself before meeting my brother;1 by then I should normally feel sleepy, but who could sleep under such strange circumstances? Marty, you will already have observed that at heart I am still a child; I can be so happy simply because I am in another place, have different money in my pocket, because bread here is free, and because my windows look out on Halle'sche Strasse instead of on Courtyard III.2 Laugh if you like, I intend to remain like this as long as possible and then one day we shall laugh together under similar conditions. On the other hand, there is one thing I must try not to think about, and that is our almost certainly thwarted reunion, otherwise-but you were right in your letter, my darling. I will miss your letters of tomorrow and the day after, very much.

I must say I do find traveling third class at night pretty unpleasant. The human being, whose astronomical geography is in his blood and nerves, begins to feel sleepy at a certain hour and is dissatisfied when he finds nothing prepared for it. The morning was cold and gray and drizzly, fit only for ducks. Not till we reached Saxony did the sky begin to clear and it turned quite nice in the afternoon. I did not pay much attention to Saxon Switzerland because I know it so well from my wanderings on foot; I preferred