Letter from Sigmund Freud to Martha Bernays, April 28, 1885

Vienna
April 28, 1885

My precious darling

To be angry with you for demanding news in such an impatient fashion is difficult, and I am sure you are not serious about it. I am too happy in the knowledge that someone loves me, and that this someone is you. By now I hope you are reassured. You can always believe what I say; don't you know that yet? Oh, what a wicked girl you are! If I were feeling better I would try and take you to task, but I am so dreadfully tired that I would be very grateful for a few affectionate words from you. But they would take two days to reach me; by then I hope to be over my tiredness.

Now I want to tell you about my minor projects. By the end of this week I will be relieved of my duty to consider myself a public danger.1 I expect the tailor to bring my summer suit on Saturday morning. If the weather is fine I shall at once board a train and ramble about on the Semmering2 for at least three days. Alone, without you, it cannot be beautiful; in fact, it is not meant to be a pleasure, simply a medicine. Before this, on the thirtieth, the chemist is to pay me for the research on cocaine. Now we must wait and see if everything works out according to plan.

This has been a bad, barren month. How glad I am it is soon coming to an end! I do nothing all day; sometimes I browse in Russian history, and now and again I torture the two rabbits which nibble away at turnips in the little room and make a mess of the floor. One intention as a matter of fact I have almost finished carrying out, an intention which a number of as yet unborn and unfortunate people will one day resent. Since you won't guess what kind of people I am referring to, I will tell you at once: they are my biographers. I have destroyed all my notes of the past fourteen years, as well as letters, scientific excerpts, and the manuscripts of my papers. As for letters, only those from the family have been spared. Yours, my darling, were never in danger. In doing so all