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Vienna, Tuesday
January 29, 1884
Dear Fräulein Martha Bernays
At first I could not imagine what the solemn presentation of a red plush visiting card (it is plush, isn't it?) between old lovers
like ourselves could mean. I suspected it to contain some kind of picture puzzle, preferably a photograph. Then I got the bright idea that it could be a name card, an idea I found confirmed after reading your letter. Well then, a golden Martha Bernays on a background of red! I like looking at the name, but I know a better one: Frau Martha Freud would strike my eye and my ear as far more beautiful. Your letter, Marty, with its wisdom about love and life, raised my spirits considerably; I have not been so merry and gay for a long time and am so grateful to you. I was very amused to realize how deeply involved you are in being engaged-so deep that you consider all the knights at the Round Table to be engaged without any further proof. If you were not “half married” yourself, you would be just as ready to consider them all unattached. I feel so gay today for no other reason than that produced by your letter, and so much in the mood to hear you talk and to close your mouth every now and again with a kiss to make you stop.
Why I never took you to see the Hammerschlags? I often meant to, but sometimes you couldn't and in the end the hours were too precious for me to have shared them with anyone but you. You were not at all awkward at the Breuers’; on the contrary, you were very talkative, more than you were with me at the time; you have no reason to reproach yourself.
Now for my bit of news. I leave here tomorrow; unlike the first room, this one is not associated with memories of sweet happiness. On Tuesday and Thursday two weeks ahead I am going to give my lectures in the Physiological and Psychiatric Clubs. My paper1 lies before me, finished to the last word. Tomorrow it will be sent off or handed in.
By the end of this week I hope to have finished my paper on the Method in two language