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Rome, though he had traveled in Italy. It would be four more years before he could overcome his inhibitions and finally make the visit he had long
dreamed of. Returning to the Fliess letters, we find this ambivalence stated again in October 1898: “In any case I am not in a state to do anything else, except study the topography of Rome, my longing for which becomes more and more acute.”81
On February 6 of the next year, Freud brought the topic of Easter into his Roman preoccupation: The secret dossier is getting thicker and thicker [presumably—though one cannot be certain—this refers to the “dream book” Freud was working on, which was soon published as The Interpretation of Dreams], as if it were really looking forward to being opened at Easter. I am curious myself about when Easter in Rome will be possible [emphasis added].82 Then two or three weeks later he wrote: “I cannot wait for Easter to show you in detail one of the principal features—that of wish-fulfillment and the coupling of opposites.”83 Later in the same letter, we find: “Rome is still far away; you know my Roman dreams.” In the same letter, Freud went on: “Sunday is still a fine institution, though Martin thinks that Sundays are getting fewer and farther between. Easter really is no longer so distant. Are your plans fixed yet? I am already itching to be off.” And finally, near the end of this letter: Also I have a secondary motive; the realization of a secret wish which might mature at about the same time as Rome, so, when Rome becomes possible, perhaps I shall throw up the lectureship. But, as I have said, we are not in Rome yet. What the secret wish may have been is not clear, though Velikovsky has one plausible interpretation (see below). Whatever this wish was, it apparently involved leaving Vienna, possibly to settle in Rome—something Freud spoke openly of later. The next Roman reference was made in August 1899: What would you think of ten days in Rome at Easter (the two of us of course) if all goes well, if I can afford it and have not been locked up, lynched or boycotted on account of the Egyptian dream book? I have looked forward to it for so long. Learning the eternal laws of life in the Eternal City would be no bad combination.84 Finally, in his letter of April 16, 1900, Freud wrote in the last paragraph: “If I closed with ‘Next Easter in Rome,’ I would feel like a pious Jew.”85 (For a pious Jew, the expression is, in fact, “Next year in Jerusalem”!) I think it is simply impossible to avoid the conclusion that Freud was deeply attracted to Christian Rome. How else is one to account for his |