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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
May 10, 1923
Dearest Lou
Nothing but visits and celebrating—Ernst and Eitingon have been here—are responsible for postponing my answer to your kind and understanding letter. As a result I am able to tell you that I can again speak, chew and work, indeed even smoking is permitted—to a certain moderate, cautious, so to speak petit bourgeois degree. The family doctor himself supplied the cigar holder for my birthday; the latter incidentally was celebrated as though I were a music hall star, or as though it were to be my last.
Even after the operation1 the prognosis is good. You realize that this means no more than a slight lessening of the suspense that is bound to hover over the years to come. Wife and daughter have nursed me tenderly.
I agree completely with your views about our helplessness in the face of physical, above all painful, suffering; like you I also find it—deplorable and, if one could reproach anyone personally, a dirty trick.
I have not done anything to deserve your husband's kind letter and would like you to convey to him my warm and sincere thanks.
With best greetings and wishes
Your
Freud
Freud had undergone an operation for cancer of the jaw.