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460A
Berlin-Grünewald
20 October 1924
Dear Professor,
The resistance of a patient who presents me with an hour of undisturbed peace gives me the chance of replying to you at once. I had not expected such a detailed letter and was therefore doubly pleased to find you, if not keen to talk, at least keen to write. But to reassure you
straight away—this letter requires no reply. It merely contains some news that I could have sent you a fortnight later, but it gives me pleasure to report to you a little.
The “rumour” had already been dispelled before your letter arrived. The speaker, who is to talk to a Zionist organization here, is a school-teacher from Vienna who bears your name. However, the invitation to the lecture went out with the name “Professor Fr. from V”. Probably a slip on the part of the president of the organization, which will have the effect of providing your namesake with a larger audience than anticipated.
Recently I had a visit from a young teacher from my son's grammar school to ask me questions about Ψα literature. He told me that he had to produce, for the State examination, a treatise on “Freud's Concept of the Erotic”. There are signs and wonders even in Prussia! A few days ago I read through the little work, which is charming and quite a success.
I have started to read the book by Lévy-Bruhl (Sorbonne) on thought in primitive people,1 the first work that will be useful in my investigation into the number seven. More about this later!
Perhaps, dear Professor, you may be interested in hearing something about Ψα from Mrs Str.[achey] from London. It struck me from the very beginning that the long period of work with you has been, as it were, obliterated. We have to discover everything afresh, as all the facts elicited by the first analysis have disappeared, while the general knowledge of Ψα is intact. You will remember that the patient lost her father in the first weeks of her life and has no memories of her own of him. Apart from other motives for the amn