Freud's criminality

A comparison of quotes is below.
To the left: The Origins of Psycho-Analysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Drafts and Notes, 1887-1902, (1954), Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, and Ernst Kris, Eds.

To the right: The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904, (1985), Masson, J. M., Ed.

Freud's letter to Fliess of February. 13, 1896.

Just by looking at the structure of the sentence, it is obvious that the middle part of the phrase about correct(ing) doesn't fit in. Moreover, the two translations differ. While Bonaparte’s version talks about discoveries, Masson’s talks about things. How is it possible that the two translations can be that different? Without access to the original letter, it is impossible to know which translation is correct.
On the other hand, since the German word for discoveries is Entdeckungen and for things” is Dinge” the mistranslation, if this is what it is, is not a coincidence but, in Bonaparte’s version, an apparent attempt - not for the first time - to confuse the reader as to the real meaning of the German sentence.

 Likewise, the last part of the sentence sounds odd. Why would Freud write that he was hoping that they would find many more things before anyone catches up with us? It doesn’t make much sense. Who would catch up with the two lunatics? Who was that special anyone? What does it even mean?
        Let’s try to rewrite the sentence. With the middle part omitted, and the last part corrected, the statement makes more sense. No doubt, this version is more in line with Freud wrote:

I hope that we [Freud and Fliess] shall find many more [illicit] things …  [to engage in] before anyone catches … us. 

What those things they would find, Freud did not reveal. But there are hints in his letters and other writings: anything perverted and criminal one can think of.

Freud's letter to Fliess of January 8, 1900

As Freud’s letter to Fliess of January 8, 1900, four years later, clearly explained, Freud wasn’t talking about his pseudo-scientific discoveries. This is what Freud wrote:

Dark matters

The reference to dark (obscure) matters is ominous. According to Merriam Webster Online Lexicon, the expression “dark” can refer to someone, given to keeping one's activities hidden from public observation or knowledge.

Moreover, now Freud was no longer talking about discoveries or things but about dark or obscure matters.  What kind of dark matters could a serious scientist and a respectable family father, like Freud, be involved in?
As a matter of course, those matters had nothing to do with Freud’s pseudo-science. Wasn't he rather talking about his perversions and criminality, murder even?

 Again, the middle part of the statement sounds odd. How could Freud even assess how many years he was in advance or ahead of?  And why does he have once again the need to point out that they, will never catch me up or not catch up with me? Let’s rewrite the phrase so that it makes sense. This is what Freud may have written:
I have to deal in dark matters with people … who will never catch me.

 Freud was right. He was never caught, and thus, could continue to live the life of a respectable scientist.

Freud's letter to Fliess of January 19, 1901

More dark matters

Not only Freud but also Fliess dealt with dark matters. Thus, in his letter to Fliess, of January 19. 1901, almost exactly a year later, Freud revealed that also Fliess explores (1) alternatively takes (2) such dark paths and associates with very few people, all of whom admire him uncritically and unconditionally.
The repeated reference to the “dark” paths is menacing. Thus, it wasn’t only Freud but also Fliess who was involved in matters that did not tolerate the light of day.

 Moreover, the reference to Fliess’ association “with very few people all of whom admired him uncritically and unconditionally” seems to indicate a cult or a coven, a circle of people of the “dark path” for whom Fliess was a worshipped leader. What kind of activities did Fliess engage in? One of those activities was revealed by his son, Robert, who claimed that his parents were a pair of sadistic paedophiles sexually exploiting his son, and offering him as a sexual toy to a group of like-minded perverts, no doubt, also including Freud.
As Freud's recent biographer, and the editor of his letters to Fliess, claimed he, found evidence ... that Robert Fliess (1895-1970), Wilhelm Fliess’s son, believed that his father had sexually molested him ... at precisely the time Freud was writing to Fliess about seduction. (3) This was not a coincidence. Since Freud was sexually abusing not only Robert but also his children, and due to paranoia, he chose to deny the reality of child abuse. If a person believed that as a child he was abused, now Freud had a simple defense. It is all in your mind, rather than in genitals.
As an adult, Robert who ironically himself became a psychoanalyst believes that, all severe neurotics [like him] have been sexually seduced or otherwise traumatised in early childhood by a psychotic (but often perfectly socially adjusted) parent [like Fliess and Freud], and in the process are violated, humiliated, and damaged. ... this happens at a very early age, before the age of four (cf. p. 218 of Symbol, Dream and Psychosis). (4)

Talking about people like his father (and Freud, even though he wasn't aware of it) Robert Fliess was referring to a particular form of mental derangement which he called ambulatory psychosis. A person who is an ambulatory psychotic appears to be a normal person, but he is abnormal in one aspect of his life, namely the sexual. As Robert explained, his sexual abuse and beatings did happen. As he revealed his father was a child abuser. Bizarrely, Robert had a conversation with Freud, who was one of his abusers,  about his father, and Freud was very understanding! (5)

As Robert explained, the child of such a parent becomes the object of defused aggression (maltreated and beaten almost within an inch of his life), and of a perverse sexuality that hardly knows an incest barrier (is seduced in the most bizarre ways by the parents, and, at his or her instigation, by others). (6) Who were those others if not Fliess' boyfriend and confidante, Sigmund Freud. 

(1) Bonaparte et al. The Origins of Psychoanalysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Drafts and Notes, 1887-1902, (1954, p. 336).
(2)  Masson, Jeffrey M.,The complete letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904, (1985, p. 450).
(3)  Masson, Jeffrey M.,The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory, (2003, p. 138).

(4) Masson, (2003, 139).

(5) Masson, (2003, 141). 

(6) Masson, (2003, 142).