V O L U M E 8 , D O C U M E N T 2 3 7 a 2 5
Vol. 8, 237a. To Heinrich Zangger
[Berlin,] 19 July 1916
Dear friend Zangger,
In this upsetting affair I feel highly fortunate to have such genuine and good
friends as you and Besso, who settle and mediate everything so calmly and surely
under the hardest of
circumstances.[1]
Pardon me as well for not being impressed
as earnestly as circumstances would have warranted upon first notification. At any
rate, the symptoms seem to have been, and partly still are, very serious indeed. Isn’t
it possible that the nerves are behind it all?
[2]
It’s good that the boys are now in the
care of Mrs. Savic;;, a very good and intelligent woman (Viennese), married to a
Serbian civil
servant.[3]
She is a former college classmate of mine and of my wife,
her best friend, a person of much kindness and intelligence. If you have a chance,
don’t fail to discuss things thoroughly with her, especially considering that her im-
pressions and experiences must be very interesting.
I considered whether I shouldn’t take the boys myself during this period, but
have arrived at the conclusion that this wouldn’t be right. It would only add to my
wife’s irritability. Moreover, I would be subjecting the children to an inner conflict
(mother or father?), no matter how careful my conduct. The experiences of last
spring made me resigned to this relationship. First trust and warmth, then icy
coldness.[4]
The woman simply suffered under the impression that the bigger boy
might become too attached to me and worked perhaps probably unconsciously so
energetically against it that a very unfortunate abrupt change took place in the boy.
Before the boys are grown up I’m not going to be allowed to play any substantial
personal role in their lives, but only watch out that no particularly serious errors are
made in their upbringing. I fear and believe that the worst deficiencies lie in the
bodily area (cleanliness, teeth). I try in vain to make sure that the necessary things
are done in this regard.
Dr. and Mrs. Zürcher also seem to be most solicitous toward my wife and the
children, in the most selflessly generous way. I’m going to write
them.[5]
Scientifically, I’m having a little breather. I examined gravitational
waves,[6]
most recently the quantum theory of light emission and
absorption,[7]
and the caus-
es of lift in
flight.[8]
On the latter topic I also wrote a short popular article that was
originally intended for the publication in honor of
Kleiner;[9]
I’ll send you the arti-
cle once it’s printed so you can read it when you have time to sit
back.[10]
With
Kleiner we lost a person who was closely connected to my life, at least as concerns
its external development. He was an honest fellow, rare as they are to come by of
late, but untalented as a
scientist.[11]