Letter from Sigmund Freud to Karl Abraham, November 5, 1925

500F

Vienna, Berggasse 19
5 November 1925

Dear Friend,

I note with pleasure that your illness has not changed you in any way, and I am willing to regard you as having again recovered. That takes a great load off my mind.

It does not make a deep impression on me that I cannot be converted to your point of view in the affair B-St film. There are things that I see

differently and things that I know differently. The ready admission that B. and St. were in the wrong gives me a right to point out the errors of the other side. I do not find Sachs's threat to resign any more praiseworthy than Storfer's; the behaviour of the Ufa towards me was so incorrect that I lost patience and made my own denial instead of waiting for the promised denial. Because of your complaint that St. did not comply after Eitingon had reached his decision, I turned directly to Eitingon, and from him I learned the contrary.1

Let us also not give too much play to repetition compulsion. You were certainly right about Jung, and not quite so right about Rank. That matter took a different course and would have passed more easily if it had not been taken so very seriously in Berlin. It is still quite possible that you may be even less right in the matter with which we are concerned now. It does not have to be the case that you are always right. But should you turn out to be right this time too, nothing would prevent me from once again admitting it.

With that, let us close the argument about something that you yourself describe as a bagatelle. Such differences of opinion can never be avoided, but only quickly overcome.

What matters more to me is to hear whether you intend to stay in Berlin or spend the winter in a milder climate. I am not quite sure in my mind what to wish for you, but in any case let the outcome be that you cause us no more worry.

With cordial greetings to you and your wife and children.