The issues that arose between Willy, on the one hand, and Robert and Ottilie, on
the other, concerned more personal matters. The first quarrel occurred when Reich wrote
his sister-in-law’s parents urging them to persuade Ottilie to take her daughter from the
sanatarium lest they also become infected with tuberculosis. Ottilie was outraged that Reich
should have worried her already anxious family. At the sanatarium she and her daughter lived
in separate quarters from Robert and took other precautions against infection. In any case,
she felt it was no business of his to interfere in this fashion, especially without even notify-
ing her^14.
One can only speculate as to why Reich behaved thus. As a result of his experiences
with his own parents, he always had fears that one marital partner could negatively affect the
other. For example, in later years he would sometimes be concerned that a co- worker’s mate,
if not interested in or even hostile to Ms work, would turn the partner against Reich. He
spoke of the hostile person’s attitudes “infecting” or changing the position of a sympathet-
ic person. In the case of his brother and sister-in-law, the danger of infection was more lit-
eral.
Even more upsetting to both Ottilie and Robert was the fact that Willy did not visit
his brother during the many months of his terminal illness in Italy. Reich wrote, he sent
medicine,but he never came himself. Robert was deeply hurt. Once he received a long,
warm letter from Willy. He shook his head and said something to the effect that his broth-
er had a split personality. Ottilie asked why he said such a thing and Robert replied: “Because
he can write a letter like that and still not visit me.”^15
When Ottilie later asked Reich directly why he had not come to Italy, Reich replied
that he had been busy, and besides he had not felt like it. Undoubtedly, Reich was busy and
he was a careful custodian of his talent. Often he took the stance that his dedication to work
prevented his participation in a host of activities others deemed essential. He was not a man
who attended weddings, funerals, and the like. But equally clearly the roots of the explana-
tion lay much deeper.He may have felt guilt because Robert had helped him during the dif-
ficult postwar years, perhaps at some sacrifice to Robert’s own well-being. As Robert went
on to a successful business career, Reich had no occasion to repay this help. Yet other sto-
ries Ottilie tells suggest a greater concern on Robert’s part about being fair to Willy in money
matters than Willy reciprocated.
One has to allow for the possibility tht Ottilie would like to paint Robert, her first
husband,in a more favorable light than her more famous brother-inlaw. Nonetheless, the
hypothesis of guilt on Reich’s part seems reasonable. Robert died in the sanatarium in April
1926.One can often infer Reich’s experience of guilt from noting what he blames others
for. In the case of Robert’s death, he blamed his well-to-do relatives for not being more
helpful to Robert during the impoverished postwar years^16.
Robert represented Reich’s last tie with his family of origin. Reich had witnessed
firsthand the painful deaths of his mother and father under conditions where he felt some
responsibility. Perhaps he was not up to witnessing directly the fatal illness of his brother,
to experiencing again the terrible helplessness, for there was now nothing to be done to
8 : Personal Life: 1920-1926 111