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Paris, Saturday
December 12, 1885
Dearest highly esteemed little Princess
Does your Highness really believe it is so easy to tear one-self away from Paris? Don't be alarmed, I am arriving in Hamburg on the morning of the twenty-first; this is certain; but I shall hardly see Berlin; I shall return to Paris instead. “What on earth has happened, you crazy man?” Nothing, my little woman, except that Charcot took me aside today and said: “J'ai un mot à vous dire.” And then he told me he would gladly consent to my translating his Volume III into German-what's more, not only the first section, which has already appeared in French, but also the second, which hasn't yet been published. Are you pleased? I am. This is again something very gratifying. It is bound to make me known to doctors and patients in Germany and is well worth the expense of a few weeks and several hundred gulden, not to mention the few hundred gulden it will bring in. It will be of great advantage to my practice and moreover will pave the way for my own book1 when that is ready for publication.
Ricchetti thinks that this would not be the moment to leave Charcot, when one has just begun to establish a contact with him, and I really do think he is right. But this has nothing to do with my being away from here for ten days, except that when I kiss you I will be richer by one prospect. And you really do deserve, my sweet treasure, to be a little pleased with me, considering the times you have had reason to be sad on my account. Well, this was a good day, similar to that which brought me the traveling grant, and I trust you will not advise me against coming to see you before I plunge into my new work in Paris.
Today so far has been like a scene from a comedy in which everything happens at once. Charcot's permission, a good letter from home; Rosa writes that she is terribly busy-my winter coat, my shirts and shoes! What the afternoon has in store I don't know-but I would like to know what happened in your life today