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Vienna, Friday
January 16, 1885
My sweet darling
A very affectionate greeting for the seventeenth; do you realize, by the way, that my lecture course also started on a seventeenth? And here, quickly, is my news, to make you happy at once. The die is cast. Today I had my wild beard trimmed and went to see Nothnagel, handed in my card: “takes the liberty of asking if and when the Herr Hofrat can be seen on an important personal matter.” The usual crowd, usual anxious whispering among the people round me, whether I was a doctor and would be admitted before them who had already been waiting so long. The conversation I understood best was between a lady in mourning and her brother. Her feminine eye immediately diagnosed something suspicious about me, whereas the brother with a superior smile contradicted her suggestion that I could be a member of that pernicious profession. At last came the disappointment, for I was admitted ahead of them all to the man who had so often played a decisive part in my life, and behind him once more the picture of the thoughtful, serious, dead woman. I asked whether he would like me to state my request now or later. If brief, now, he said, otherwise it would be better to talk it over another time. I promised to be brief. “You once said you would be willing to assist me, and I believed it because it was you who said so. Now the opportunity has arrived. I would like to ask your opinion whether on the strength of my existing publications I should apply for the Dozentur or whether I should wait till I have more.” “What are your papers on, Doctor? Coca-” (So coca is associated with my name.) I interrupted him to produce my collected writings, those from the pre-