Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
May 12, 1938

Dear Ernst

I am writing to you for no particular reason because here I am sitting inactive and helpless while Anna runs here and there, coping with all the authorities, attending to all the business details. One can “already see the journey.”1 All we are waiting for is the Inland Revenue's “all clear,” which is supposed to arrive within a week.

Two prospects keep me going in these grim times: to rejoin you all and—to die in freedom.* I sometimes compare myself with the old Jacob who, when a very old man, was taken by his children to Egypt, as Thomas Mann is to describe in his next novel.2 Let us