Letter from Sigmund Freud to Max Eitingon, December 1, 1929

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
December 1, 1929

Dear Max

We received your sad news yesterday with that deep sorrow which finally turned into the realization that a sudden end can only

be looked upon as a blessing, considering the hopelessness of the outlook. I have been charged to express to you and your family the deep sympathy of us all, and I am not going to try to console you. The loss of a mother must be something very strange, unlike anything else, and must arouse emotions that are hard to grasp. I myself still have a mother, and she bars my way to the longed-for rest, to eternal nothingness; I somehow could not forgive myself if I were to die before her. But you are young, you actually have the best and most eventful decade, from fifty to sixty, still ahead of you, and your friends have reason to hope that you will soon be reconciled to a misfortune which does not surpass the bounds of the average human fate. I trust that your Mirra, with whom (as you know) I sometimes remonstrate in my mind, will use this occasion also to show her ability as helper and comforter, as she invariably does in an emergency.

With cordial greetings and in the hope of seeing you soon

Your
Freud