You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
December 8, 1901
Dear Protectrix
Here are further developments: My three letters to Exner, Nothnagel, and Krafft-Ebing have called forth three answers, of which I enclose two in natura; the third, from Exner, I am quoting in part.
It is the most official,* the unfriendliest and unpleasantest of the three.
Exner writes: “In accordance with my promise, I talked about you to the Minister, who also told me of Frau Hofrat Gomperz' intercession on your behalf. Unfortunately I did not gain the impression that all these efforts are likely to meet with success in the immediate future, during the next few weeks or months. As I already pointed out during your visit, you will have to be prepared for [a wait of] six months or a year, and even for these dates I can offer no guarantee. So let us hope.”
Nothnagel and Krafft-Ebing both wrote only after they had done what I had asked them to do. So the application has now been renewed. His Excellency can no longer plead ignorance.
So now-i.e., during the first weeks following the renewal of the application-I shall ask you to repeat your intercession at a suitable occasion and, if you are offered even half a promise, to emphasize the element of time which, according to the astronomer Seni1 and my friend Fliess, is the most important element in all human concerns. Having already waited 41/2 years I ought, as someone sufficiently convinced of the omnipotence of an Excellency, to be spared any further waiting. In the event of a protracted delay it is after all not impossible that my sudden demise could put an end to the intention of honoring me (which would be for good, since we don't live in China where they have something like a posthumous elevation to rank). Indeed, it is perhaps even more likely that by postponement till summer or autumn the Minister himself will reach that fatal region in which his most amiable intentions would be as immaterial to the person concerned as his most hostile ones; a possibility, by th