saying good-bye
to
you.
Though this embarrassing thought often
crossed
my
mind, I
couldn't
bring myself to
write to
you,
because I
always
wanted to wait until
I'd
be able to
report
some
pleasant
news
about
myself
--
and this has been
going
on
exactly
until
today.
That
is to
say, I
have been asked
to
take
over
the
teaching
of mathematics
at the Technikum Winterthur from 15
May
to
15
July,
as
their professor
will be
on
military duty during
that time. I
am
beside myself with
joy
about
that,
because
today
I received the
news
that
everything has
been
definitely arranged.
I have not the
slightest
idea
as
to who
might
be the
humanitarian
who recommended
me
there,
because from what
I
have been told, I
am
not in the
good
books of
any
of
my
former
teachers, and I did
not
apply for the job but received
an
invitation.
There is also
a
chance that I'll get
a
steady job in the Swiss patent
office later
on.
And
now
what should I
say
about all the generosity and fatherly
friendliness with which
you
favored
me
whenever
I
had the
privilege
of
visiting
with you? I know that
you
no
doubt know it and that
you
do
not want to hear
about
it. But that much is
certain,
nobody
has been
as
kind
to
me as
you
have been, and
more
than
once
I
went to
your
place
in
a
sad
or
bitter mood and
always
regained
there my
joyfulness
and inner
equilibrium.
-
But
so
that
you
do not
laugh
at
me
too
much,
I must
add
immediately
that I know quite well that
I
am a
cheerful
fellow and barring
an
upset stomach
or
something
of that
kind,
I
have
no
talent whatsoever for melancholic moods.
I
hope
that
your
wife is
quite
well
again,
that she is
so
well,
in fact, that
you
were
able to take
a
trip during the Easter vacation,
as
you
have
frequently
done before. Since Miss
Dora
has certainly
passed her examination splendidly, I
am
sending her
my
cordial
congratulations.
With
Mrs.
Ansbacher I
have visited
very
often
during
my
stay
here,
mostly
while her sister from
Augsburg
was
here with her
daughter,
who studies music.
Luigi
is
now
taking
an
additional
semester in
Leipzig,
after
having
completed his studies in Pavia last
year.
He finds his teachers there
excellent, incomparably
better than
those in
Berlin,
of
course
I
do not know which professors he has in
mind.
Shortly
I
will
cross
Spluegen
on
foot
so
as
to combine the
pleasant duty with
a
nice
pleasure.
When I then
get
to
Zurich I will
not
deprive myself of looking
you up.
With
many
cordial greetings
to
you
and
your
dear
family,
I remain
your
devoted
Albert Einstein
105.
FROM MILEVA MARIC
[Zurich,
3 May
1901]
My
dear Johannzel!
I got
your
d.[ear]
little letter
today,
from which
I
see
with
astonishment that
you
didn't
get
my
little
note
of assent. Did it
indeed
get
lost
or
did something
else
happen
to
it?
But I
hope that
in the meantime
you
received it after all.
I
also
wrote
you
a
little
postcard yesterday
in the
worst
of moods, because of
a
letter I
got.
But
as
I read
your
letter
today,
I
became
a
little
more
cheerful,
since I
see
how
you
love
me,
and I think that we'll make the little
169