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Vienna, Wednesday
January 7, 1885
My beloved darling
At last a letter from you again, which makes me laugh, for it informs me that you now possess three copies of the article1 you wanted. Now you can send one on to Rosa.
On one point I cannot agree with you, Marty. You say how sensible we are now and how foolishly we treated one another in the past. I gladly agree that we are now sensible enough to believe in our love without any doubts, but we would never have reached this point had it not been for all that went before. It was the very intensity of my misery brought about by the many hours of suffering you caused me two years ago and since, that convinced me of my love for you. Today, what with all the work, chasing after money, position, and reputation, all of which hardly allows me time to drop you an affectionate line, I could never reach that conviction. Let us not despise the times when for me a day was made worth living merely by a letter from you, when a decision from you meant a decision between life and death. I really don't know what else I could have done at that time; it was a difficult period of struggle and finally of victory, and only after it was all over could I find the inner peace to work toward our future. In those days I was fighting for your love as I am now for your person, and you must admit that I had to work as hard for the one as I am now for the other.—
During the past few days I have been feeling a bit seedy, engaged as I am in the twofold struggle which forms the content of Auch Einer:2 struggle against a cold and against “the object.” I have a combination of nose-throat-gums-ear catarrh and am correspondingly miserable. I suggest you read about it in Vischer.
My object has a specific name, it is called neuralgia-face-ache. The question is whether I shall succeed in curing it. I have already told you about one case which has very much improved; but now I am treating a second, a clear, much nicer case, at Prof. Weinlechner's. The result of