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Vienna, Wednesday
January 16, 1884
My precious darling
Yesterday was Breuer's birthday; I had hoped to see him at the Club,1 but he did not turn up and I have just written him a few lines. I had a lazy day yesterday; my discovery evaporated in the
chemical laboratory, and I was rather annoyed about it. It is hard to find material for publication, and it infuriates me to see how everyone is making straight for the unexploited legacy of nervous diseases.
At the Journal
My precious darling, I realize with horror that I didn't write to you for the seventeenth; the reason is that I have been so caught up in myself, and then I have days on end-they invariably follow one another, it is like a recurring sickness-when my spirits decline for no apparent reason and I tend to get exasperated at the slightest provocation, even by the fact that my dear and good sweetheart covers her pages of notepaper, which she sacrifices to me, with such a sprawling hand. It is rather odd, and reminds me of your recent remark that by the time we are sixty-eight, if we ever get that far, we won't be able to boast of much resilience. Even when you use endearments, I don't entirely like it. I think you are misjudging me because we are so far apart and ascribe to me a measure of kindliness, decency and I don't know what, which I have never possessed, never will possess, and which you hardly could have found in me when we were together. When we meet again you may be disappointed on finding that I look different from the lovely picture your tender imagination has painted of me. I don't want you to love me for qualities you assume in me, in fact not for any qualities; you must love me as irrationally as other people love, just because I love you, and you don't have to be ashamed of it.
I would rather you didn't make me out so good-natured; I can hardly contain myself for silent savagery, and your latest letters are so tame; if you weren't such a very sweet angel, I would love to have a good squabble with y