D O C U M E N T 2 6 M A Y 1 9 2 3 3 1
for your sake, dear Albert, than your anti-Semitic counterparts in Berlin. But it’s
unnecessary to talk about that since you seem to have definitely declined.
Pauli[4]
wrote you a card, dear Albert, immediately after receiving your letter, in
which he asks you whether he should send out the desired receipt immediately on
his own or whether he has to wait for a message from Zurich. He also would like
to know whether the matter runs pro rata temporis or whether the current year is
included in the “pain-and-suffering
money.”[5]
You must have been away when the
card arrived, otherwise you would surely have answered long ago.
It’s true luck that you received the Nobel Prize right now; otherwise it would
have been really hard to know how you could have supported your family in Swit-
zerland.
In order to help out with our finances, i.e., in order to make the little house debt-
free, I have already started this winter to write a biography of your childhood and
adolescent
years.[6]
I really enjoyed putting myself back into those distant times. I
also already had an American publisher as a prospective candidate for the business.
But, of course, I will publish nothing if you do not willingly give your approval to
it. I just thought—sooner or later someone is going to do it. So much is being pub-
lished about you that presents you in a false light. Why shouldn’t I write something
true about you, for once? The biography isn’t quite finished yet; Pauli is still pol-
ishing the style. If you wish, I’ll send you the manuscript as soon as it’s finished.
If the 19-year old Albertli, who really is such a smart boy, is so very attached to
his mother, that surely is very good testimony in her
favor.[7]
She in any case seems
to be an extraordinarily understanding mother. I gladly forgive her what I had to
suffer by
her.[8]
I’m just very, very sorry that I see absolutely nothing of my neph-
ews. Do come here once with them to see us. I think of you so much and am so at-
tached to you and see nothing of you. Don’t you remember anymore how well we
got on when you were staying with me during the war, to be
nursed?[9]
That was
the only time that you had more than 2–3 days to spare for me.
It was a colossal surprise to me that you found a continuation of the general the-
ory of relativity and figured it
out.[10]
In what direction does this continuation
move? I cannot imagine an even greater generalization of the prior results. It prob-
ably must then involve a special application; tell me a bit about it.
Apart from cooking and mending I’m also still busy with philosophy and music.
In April, Peter was here to visit us with his
wife;[11]
so there was continual discus-
sion.
Socializing, we have none to speak of. I see Bice roughly every fortnight; we live
very far away from each
other.[12]
Nearly 2 hours’ time is needed to get to her place