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Lomnicz1
September 17, 1918
Dear Doctor
My stay here is coming to an end. In a few days I shall be able to speak to you and thank you for all your efforts, also
in connection with the Congress.2 Just when this will be I am not yet certain. If you receive no further news-you realize that at the moment the telegraph system isn't functioning at all-we leave here on Friday morning, the twentieth, so as to get to Budapest that evening. Ferenczi has been asked to get us a room on the Danube.
As regards the Congress, I still have two requests or reminders. First, that the official element shouldn't be emphasized; let us leave banquets, speeches, solemn addresses and so on, all rather meaningless in themselves, for other occasions. At least I would like it to be known that I am taking no part in all this, won't say a word in public, won't pull a solemn face, etc. In short, I am going to remain passive. The only thing I can add, if the Congress rises to such heights, is to suggest a more dignified and generally more interesting topic for a lecture than that anounced in the program. I don't know as yet just what, for I am enjoying too much comfort here to have any ideas.
Furthermore, I would like to ask you to bridle your hospitality toward the participants and to reduce their lodgings as well as the entertainment to a fairly modest scale. I suggest this in your interest, for I don't want you to appear in the role of the financial backer, a role which you quite rightly don't wish to enact. On the other hand the Association3 itself has no means of its own at the moment. The warmth of the reception will nevertheless be quite obvious to all participants.
With cordial greetings to you, your family and guests
Your
Freud
Small resort in the Tatra Mountains in Hungary.
The Fifth International Psychoanalytical Congress in Budapest, Sept., 1918.