All the passive reading left me feeling paralyzed. I thought of death. I dreamed of Freud’s ghost. I learned that Freud not only decided to be cremated, he also decided when to die. He must have thought of it, although unthinkable. The thought of "living death" brings us closer to the impossible relation to our death, closer to "the zone in which the impossible is named." [6] To venture such thoughts is to pass along the intolerability of dying alive.
I picked up H.D.’s book, Tribute to Freud, about her time in analysis, 1933-34. She said of Freud’s death: “I did not grieve for the Professor or think of him.” [7] She denied mourning. But she also said (perhaps referring to Freud’s impending flight to London) that she wished, and knew, that “the Professor would be born again.” [8] How could she know?
Once Freud died, H.D. did not think of him. Or at least, she didn't think of him in her conscious mind. But the unconscious mind knows not the reality of death. And she of course must have remembered him. Perhaps not often enough, or only in dreams. And she did write of him.