1921
386F
[to Mrs Abraham]
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
3 January 1921
Dear Frau Doctor,1
Your children's letters were too charming—I hope they did not cost them too much trouble or even tears, were not rewritten several times, etc. I should have answered the little ones directly, but I was afraid of undermining their morals, because I should certainly have thought of confessing that the finest gifts are spoilt by having to say thank you for them. It would also have embarrassed me either to go on playing the part of the great patron or having to admit that I had made them happy by means of the resources of others. When the opportunity arises, please tell them the true state of affairs, to which the moral can be attached that also by work like the practice of psychoanalysis it is possible to acquire a few Dutch guilders sometime late in life.
From your news I pick out the one that your husband is now at last well again. We were already quite annoyed about his illness. Here too we are haunted by more illness than is actually indispensable.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year, richer in fulfilment and entirely devoid of anything disagreeable,
Your faithfully devoted
Freud
1. It was customary to address wives by their husbands' academic titles.
387F
Vienna1
4 February 1921
Dear Friend,
My hearty congratulations on the appearance of your book, which is generally appreciated by the analysts as a collection of classical, model papers. Incidentally, Deuticke is willing to publish a second edition of Dreams and Myths, if you would get in touch with him.
With warmest greetings
from your
Freud
C.[orragio] C.[asimiro]!
1. Postcard.
388A
Berlin-Grünewald
9 February 1921
Dear Professor,
My most sincere thanks for letting me know with such warm congratulations about the publication of my book. You know best how much of the book stems from ideas that you had started working on. I may say that, as I wrote each separate paper over all these years, I wanted to make my readers aware of my gratitude and devotion towards you. And because I thought that these sentiments were clearly enough recognizable, I omitted dedicating the book as a whole to you. Rank will present you with a copy on my behalf for, due to the trouble with exporting, I would not be able to send it from here in any case. I know no better way to heed the encouraging “CC” on your card than by unadulterated loyal participation in our common work.
I shall get in touch with Deuticke about Dreams and Myths as soon as I have a more precise idea about the amount of revision it will require.
My wife was particularly pleased with the letter she received from you some time ago and sends her belated thanks. It is virtually impossible to separate the children from their bicycles; if you have ever made anyone happy, dear Professor, you definitely have succeeded here!
With kindest regards from house to house,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
389A
Berlin-Grünewald
27 February 1921
Dear Professor,
A few days ago I was visited by a lady from Warsaw whose brother, Julius Hering, was treated by you at the end of 1919. Apparently he had a psychosis, which improved under Ψα. It seems that on the way home he had an acute relapse. H. has been in a lunatic asylum in Warsaw for a year. The family would like to bring him to Berlin, to let him continue his treatment with me. There has evidently been a remission, but he still has a fixed persecution mania.
In such circumstances I naturally have great misgivings, especially as H. would have to be in a sanatorium here and would need someone to accompany him in order to come to me. I have asked for a report from the doctor treating him at present, which is to be sent to me to Merano, and I would be very grateful to you, dear Professor, for a very short expression of opinion (to Merano).
I am leaving with my wife on the evening of 2 March; we shall be in M. (Park Hotel) on the 4th. Should you by any chance be travelling southwards over Easter…but that would be too lovely. We should like then to go to Verona—Venice for a few days. With kindest regards from house to house.
Yours,
Karl Abraham
390F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
6 March 1921
Dear Friend,
Ungrudging congratulations on your well-earned convalescence leave! I hope your “hand luggage” (the two Glovers1) will not disturb you too much. Unfortunately I cannot think of coming to see you in the beautiful south. I am glad to be tolerably well, and able to mint money and work on the Mass Psychology.
Jul. Hering is a real persecution fanatic, whose chances are not good. He suffers from uncontrollable sexual excitement during the night, which is probably directed towards men. For me the beginnings of influencing him broke down when the money with which he should have paid me did not materialize. A bad case!
Recently I have quite frequently given your address to people who applied to me for treatment, including on one occasion, after a suggestion from America, to a lady in Königsberg. In this respect your absence from Berlin is an embarrassment to me. Otherwise I count on your handing on to others the cases you cannot deal with yourself.
With best wishes for weather and well being (alliteration!),
Yours,
Freud
1. The brothers James and Edward Glover, both in analysis with Abraham since the beginning of the year (circular letter of 10 January 1921, BL); they became full members of the British Society in 1922.
James Glover [1882–1926], M.B., CH.B. 1903 Glasgow, at the Medico-Psychological Clinic, Brunswick Square. Of delicate health, he left the London climate for Spain; he returned from there with dysentery and malaria and died at the age of 44. “He had galvanized the British Psycho-Analytic Society with his personality” (Meisel & Kendrick, 1986: p. 307).
Edward Glover [1888–1972], m.d. 1915 Glasgow. He later played an important role in the British Society, especially in the “Freud/Klein controversies” in the 1940s, being on all the main committees of the Society and Institute and chairing many of the Special Meetings. Originally a supporter of Klein, he later joined her daughter (and his analysand) Melitta Schmideberg in her criticism of her mother. Chairman of the Training Committee until his resignation from the Society in January 1944, whereupon, in 1949, he joined the Swiss Society. (Cf. Roazen, 2000.)
391A
Berlin-Grünewald
2 May 1921
Dear Professor,
Our good wishes were expressed in the Committee letter which has just gone off, and Eitingon will certainly repeat what we wanted to say when he presents you with the bust.1 This does not prevent me, however, from sending my personal and special good wishes in this letter, naturally on behalf of my wife as well. I very much regret that I do not have Eitingon's freedom of movement; otherwise, nothing would have stopped me from visiting you on the occasion of your birthday and expressing my good wishes to you personally. I hope we shall spend some harmonious time together in the autumn.
I take this opportunity of thanking you, dear Professor, for the various recommendations that were recently delivered to me by patients (including Dr Sternberg, and Lewin-Epstein).
With the “Corragio, Casimiro!” so appropriate nowadays and with kindest regards,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. A bust of Freud by the Viennese sculptor David Paul Königsberger, which was presented to Freud as a gift for his 65th birthday. Jones gave a copy to the University of Vienna, where it was unveiled in 1955 (Jones, 1957: p. 25). “Evidently, I was taken in after all; I really thought Eitingon wanted to have it for himself, otherwise I wouldn't have sat for it last year” (Freud to Ferenczi, 8 May 1921).
392F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
8 May 1921
Dear Friend,
Be satisfied with this short letter of thanks and Eitingon's report. I am short of sleep, and am trying to clear a mountain of correspondence.
With so many good wishes one is reminded how old one is, and presents make one infantile, which indeed goes well together.
We Viennese agree to your suggestion for the Committee meeting.1
With best wishes for you and yours,
Yours,
Freud
1. Abraham's suggestion, in a circular letter of 21 April 1921 (BL), for a meeting of the Committee in September in the Harz mountains.
393A
Berlin-Grünewald
12 June 1921
Dear Professor,
As I sent off the Committee letter only yesterday, there is not much to tell you, but I come as a petitioner in a cause that, for me and other members of our Society, is very urgent.
In one of the latest Committee reports I mentioned a woman student called Hubermann,1 who has established herself very well in our circle through splendid work and an extraordinary understanding of Ψα. It has now come to light that she has pulmonary tuberculosis in a relatively benign form, i.e. dry pleurisy taking a very chronic course, but recently with daily fever. An excellent specialist predicts that three months of bed rest would have lasting success. By acting quickly, we could save a really valuable worker for Ψα quite apart from the humanitarian side of the matter. Apart from the patient's own small means, 5–6,000 M are necessary for the cure. I spoke with Eitingon, who was also of the opinion that I should ask you, dear Professor, for a contribution out of one of the funds, especially as this source would make it much easier for the patient to accept support, whereas she resists private help. Eitingon thinks the American fund could perhaps be called upon. 100 dollars would correspond exactly with the sum needed. It would be wonderful if the matter could be settled in this way. I am asking only for a very brief decision as to whether we can expect the money. I enclose the address of my bank; naturally the contribution can just as well go to Eitingon, if that is perhaps more convenient, as he is always dealing with American money.
Heartfelt thanks in advance! And best wishes from
Your
Karl Abraham
1. Circular letter of 21 May 1921 (BL).
394F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
16 June 1921
Dear Friend,
It is a simple matter. You vouch for the person, Eitingon approves the expenditure. So all there is for me to do is to give instructions to the Leipzig firm to transfer $100 to the address you have enclosed. Which has already been done.
Cordially,
Yours,
Freud
395A
Grünewald1
26 June 1921
Dear Professor,
Soon after you wrote to me, I received the transfer from Leipzig. As 100 dollars come to almost 7,000 M. at present, the whole cost of the cure for three months is covered by it, and I believe we are doing an extraordinarily good deed with this money. I am very grateful to you for dealing with it so promptly. Frau H. is already going into the sanatorium on 1 July. She will write to you personally.
At the moment I am alone. My wife has gone to the Harz for two to three weeks with the children. I suppose you are soon getting ready to leave too. Yesterday evening Sachs was here, and we rejoiced in advance in the pleasure of the meeting in September.
With cordial greetings,
Yours,
Abraham
1. Postcard.
396A
Berlin-Grünewald
21 July 1921
Dear Professor,
The Comm. letters have just been finished. Rank will send you the Vienna copy,1 so that I do not have to report a great deal from here. Anyhow I want to mention to you, before I come to the point of this letter, that a publishing house here wants to translate a selection of your writings into Yiddish.—-
I have to ask you today for some information I need for a quotation. I am busy writing a short paper on rescue phantasies.2 It deals particularly with the phantasy in which the neurotic sees a carriage approaching along the road, with the emperor or some other father-substitute in it, and the horses bolting. He seizes the horses' reins and thus rescues the emperor.—I think you have mentioned this particular phantasy somewhere. In “Contributions to the Psychology of Love, I” I can only find a general reference to the rescue of a high-ranking father substitute.3 Even Eitingon, with his almost unfailing knowledge of the literature, cannot help me. I therefore ask for a hint on your part! I have come across this phantasy in several analyses, but feel that I first heard about it from you. Many thanks in anticipation!
Secondly, could you let me know now approximately4 when and for how long you think we shall be meeting in September? I must know this as soon as possible because of other arrangements. An approximate date would naturally be sufficient!
I hope, dear Professor, that things are going well with you there and you will fully recuperate, so that in September we shall find you as fit as you were last year. With cordial greetings, also from my wife,
Yours,
Abraham
1. To Gastein, where Freud had gone on holiday with his sister-in-law Minna Bernays on 15 July. His wife Martha, who was in poor health, had joined Anna and Ernstl Halberstadt in the Salzkammergut. On 14 August the whole family went via Innsbruck to Seefeld in the Tyrol. On 14 September Freud went to Berlin, then to Hamburg, from where he travelled, on 21 September, to the Committee meeting in the Harz.
2. Abraham, 1922[76].
3. Freud, 1910h: pp. 172–173.
4. Doubly underlined in original.
397F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
24 July 1921
Bad Gastein
Dear Friend,
You are right, the phantasy stems from me, even though it refers only to an imago, a man of importance, not to father or emperor. But where is it? It is difficult to trace it here, as I do not take all my works with me on my travels. But I think you will find it in the Everyday Life, among the paramnesias, where I try to explain why I call the day-dreamer in Le Nabab1 Mr Jocelyn, though his real name is Joyeuse. If that is not where it is, this hint will be sufficient to guide your or Eitingon's memory to the right place. (Interpretation of Dreams?)2
It will incidentally interest you to hear that a few months ago a young woman student sent me a Hof[f]mann booklet in which such a rescue is described; because of the verbal correspondence it must have been the cryptomnesic source of my Paris phantasy.3 Surely you know these pearls of a high school library? I naturally read and forgot many of these booklets, because whenever one boastfully applied for a serious book, one was always thrown back into one's childhood by one of these Hofmann booklets, which were innumerable.
Here I am enjoying rest and idleness, and send my cordial greetings.
Yours,
Freud
1. Novel by Alphonse Daudet [1840–1897], whom Freud “more than once met…in Charcot's house” (Freud, 1901b: p. 149).
2. In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901b: pp. 149–150), Freud discussed his slip of remembering “Jocelyn” instead of “Joyeuse” (French for Freud) when writing The Interpretation of Dreams (cf. 1900a: pp. 491 and 535).
3. Referring to a popular series, Franz Hoffmann's Jugendbibliothek [Library for Young People]. In 1924, Freud added a footnote to the pertinent passage in Everyday Life, tracing his rescue phantasy to his having read such a scene between the ages of 11 and 13 (1901b: p. 150).
398A
Grünewald
6 August 1921
Dear Professor,
Just as I was about to write to you, the Mass Psychology arrived. I am looking forward to reading it for the second time during the next few days and for now only want to thank you very much indeed!
At the same time I am sending you the short manuscript on rescue phantasies. Rank has already received a copy. I prefer to send you a copy before it goes to print, firstly, because I do not wish to introduce something as new when it may already have been said; and secondly, because I should like to know whether you agree with the contents. And since the paper is only a short one, I hope you will not be angry with me for sending it to you during your holidays. If anything that I assumed to be new is already contained in one of your papers, I would ask you to return the manuscript with a short remark. Otherwise, I should be grateful if you would briefly let me know that you agree!*
Furthermore, I have to thank you for the hint you gave me. I am sure the section in the Interpretation of Dreams that you mentioned is the one I had been looking for without success.
But I must remind you of the other question contained in my earlier letter, because you have not yet answered it. I asked you for a rough idea of when our meeting shall take place. Because of another journey I want to make beforehand, I ought to have the rough information in my hands already. If you could give me the approximate date of the rendezvous on the same postcard on which you reply to me about the article, I shall be very happy.
After having had patients only in the mornings for two to three weeks, I have recently reopened the whole business. Not very easy in this heat! But after the almost five-week-long journey to Merano in March, I cannot very well have another longish interruption at present, yet I am thinking of using the second half of September for it. In any case, the practice is very lucrative, and recently it has at the same time been particularly successful from a therapeutic point of view.
With cordial greetings, also from my wife,
Yours,
Abraham
* The manuscript can then be destroyed.
399A
Grünewald1
7 August 1921
Dear Professor,
I have just heard that as long as a week ago you became a grandfather in Berlin as well.2 So I am hastening to send this card after my letter; it is laden with good wishes for you and your wife, naturally also from my wife.
With cordial greetings,
Yours,
Abraham
1. Postcard.
2. Stephan Gabriel, son of Ernst and Lucie Freud, was born on 31 July.
400F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
8 August 1921
Bad Gastein
Dear Friend,
I have nothing to lay my claim on and no objections to make, I fully agree with your deeper interpretation of the rescue phantasy, and I wish only to draw your attention to an awkward feature of the Oedipus passage which has already caused me a great deal of trouble.
You write of a “hollow way” as a place where they met, which is just as suitable to us as a symbol of the genital as for the incident about giving way. L. Frank, who has retold the story of the Ψα patricide in the “Ursache”,1 also makes his hero engage in phantasies about a “hollow way” that he cannot properly remember. But the Greek texts known to me speak of a ‘óδος σχíστη, which means, not “hollow way” but “crossroads”, at which, one would suppose, giving way would not be difficult. Would it not be as well to consult a scholar before you publish?
I cannot decide the date of our congress2 alone. I was thinking of the last week in September, so that I could be in Vienna on the 30th. The question of the beginning should soon be settled. A great deal depends on Jones's arrangements.
My cordial greetings to you and yours,
Yours,
Freud
1. Frank, 1915. Leonhard Frank [1882–1961], German writer and pacifist.
2. That is, the meeting of the Committee.
401A
Grünewald
10 August 1921
Dear Professor,
I owe you thanks for the prompt answer to my request, and I am glad that you agree with the results of the short work. I would have liked to get some information about the “hollow way”, but as I have no expert available immediately, I preferred to leave this detail out completely.
I hope you will be able to enjoy the next few weeks in Seefeld with your family. In the meantime I shall go on working up to our meeting. I have seldom had such scientifically satisfying material. It seems that a supplement to the problem of melancholy is taking shape1; perhaps I can talk about it in the autumn, as well as about a few other new discoveries.
Your Ernst, who is a very proud and happy father, recently spent an evening with us. He is designing a re-furbishing of my study for me, which promises to be very fine.
Now I have two more questions, but there is absolutely no hurry for the answers. Perhaps in the course of the next few weeks you would give me a brief opinion. (1.) Would it be all right if, for our meeting, I were to pick you up from Hamburg, so that we could travel together to the general meeting-place in Hanover?2 (More details about that in the circular letter, which will reach you via Rank in the next few days). In that case I should like to ask Herr Halberstadt to take a photograph of me while I am there. (2.) It was mentioned in an earlier circular letter that the expenses of our meeting would be paid through a fund. As I should like to make arrangements for lodgings etc. in several places some time in advance, it would be convenient for me to know whether I must keep to certain limits in the choice of hotels, rooms, etc. In my view it would not be a bad thing at all if everybody were to contribute to the costs; but as in first-class hotels prices have now risen greatly, I should prefer not to have to act entirely off my own bat.
Sachs came back yesterday and was our guest in the evening. He has become considerably slimmer, but is in good health.
Nothing else new from here. My wife and I greet you and yours with all our hearts!
Yours,
Abraham
1. About which Abraham would speak at the next Psychoanalytic Congress [Berlin, 1922]; he incorporated it into his classic Study of the Development of the Libido (1917[105]).
2. Actually, Freud, Eitingon, and Sachs would travel together from Berlin to the meeting-place in Hildesheim. Abraham, who visited relatives in Bremen, arrived via Hamburg (Grosskurth, 1991: p. 19).
402F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
19 August 1921
Seefeld
Dear Friend,
A reply to both your questions: I shall be very glad if you pick me up from Hamburg, but I may come to Berlin from there. Two purposes intersect in me; one is to bring my grandson Ernst1 home without a long delay, the other is to make the acquaintance of my new Gabriel.
The second point is much easier to deal with. As Eitingon is the dispenser of the Fund and has access to it, I have asked him to bring the money for the Congress with him. I have [asked him] to bring 3,000 marks for each participant (6, not including myself); have had no reply to tell me whether that seems to him to be enough. You could therefore discuss it with him and get the money needed directly from him.
It is very fine here, and I am very inactive.
Cordially yours,
Freud
1. Who stayed with the Freuds in Seefeld.
403A
Grünewald1
25 August 1921
Dear Professor,
Many thanks for your prompt information! In the meantime Jones has declared himself in agreement with 21 September, which can now be considered as decided. But as Jones may be going to Nuremberg beforehand, and you yourself may be travelling from Berlin, Hanover can perhaps no longer be considered as a meeting-place, and we could meet directly in Hildesheim. We in Berlin ask you to let us know up to 7 September from where you are coming to join the others. If we know this about everybody, we will fix the place and the exact time and let you know. Therefore I ask you, dear Professor, also to let us know where you can be reached by post between 10 and 15 September. (Should Ferenczi be near you, please inform him about everything. As he has not replied to a letter to Partenkirchen,2 I am uncertain whether my card of today will reach him.[)]
Accept, together with your family, the most cordial greetings, also from my wife!
Yours,
Abraham3
1. Postcard.
2. Ferenczi followed a course of treatment in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in southern Germany, from where he visited Freud in Seefeld on 30 August (telegram to Freud, 29 August 1930).
3. The meeting in the Harz took place as planned. For this occasion, Freud had prepared a talk on “Psychoanalysis and Telepathy”, published posthumously in abbreviated form (Freud, 1941d [1921]; cf. Falzeder, 1994).
404A
Berlin-Grünewald
4 December 1921
Dear Professor,
This is the first letter I have written to you directly since our meeting. Our circular letters fulfil so completely the purpose of giving new information and asking questions that only occasionally are a few private things left over.
You surely remember the talk we had on that rainy day on the way to Schierke. To my delight I can tell you today that I have recently had a more favourable impression of Sachs. Offences like those that attracted our attention on the way, and all the other changes that I mentioned at the time, are scarcely evident now. On the contrary, I found that on certain occasions a good, firm sense of tact appears. I am beginning to hope that the worries we had are thus becoming without substance; but naturally we still have to wait for the near future. I shall report to you again in a short time. I know that this news will please you, and so I did not want to keep it from you any longer.
Now for something else. Recently my wife and I spent an evening in Ernst's charming home in the Regentenstrasse. On this occasion I was again convinced of the splendid progress of your little grandson. I cannot remember having seen, in a child of this age, such a calmly observant expression, as though he were scanning all about him systematically (heritage from the grandfather?).
Last Sunday we had Oliver with us; before this he had not come out of his work at all. He is always particularly kind to our children; our little boy is his special friend and feels very honoured by the project of a mutual exchange of bicycle handlebars.
I do not expect any answer to this letter, dear Professor. If you want to acknowledge that you have received it, you can do that in the next circular letter.
With cordial greetings to you and yours, also from my wife.
Yours,
Karl Abraham
405F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
9 December 1921
Dear Friend,
I am very pleased at your news about Sachs, as happens every time I have reason to assume that the gloominess of old age makes me see things from too unfavourable a point of view. Unfortunately Sachs has become somewhat estranged from me in the last few years, and knows that himself.
In the name of my lady of the house I invite you to be our guest when you come here at the New Year for your lecture. We have arranged a room as a guest-room, which is at present occupied by Frau Lou Andreas.1 She praises it highly, we know it not to be ideal, but still it is as good as a hotel-room—hotels are now terribly dear—and it is well heated.
With cordial greetings to you and to your wife and children,
Yours,
Freud
1. Lou Andreas-Salomé stayed until 20 December. “In the room in which Frau Lou stayed, we will house early in January, one after the other, Abraham and Ferenczi, who shall lecture to our Americans” (Freud to Ernst and Lucie Freud, 20 December 1921, LOC). Abraham eventually postponed his trip to late January (see letter 407A, 18 January 1922).
406A
Grünewald1
25 December 1921
Dear Professor,
This card brings you my most sincere thanks for your delightful Christmas gift!2 You yourself know best how beautiful the lectures look in this binding, and so I do not need to say any more about it.— If no vis maior (strike?!) intervenes, I hope to be with you on 3 January. For your wife's information I would like to mention that I shall be having dinner on the train. There is therefore no need for even the smallest preparations for my arrival. Also I would expressly ask that no one should take the trouble to meet me at the station. A car will take me to Berggasse in a few minutes.
Oliver, who has just left us, has told me everything a foreigner needs to know. I am very much looking forward to seeing all of you in Vienna once again after such a long interval and hope to find you well. With kind regards to you and your whole house,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. Postcard.
2. A special leather-bound pocket edition of Freud's Introductory Lectures, published by the Verlag.