79.
TO
MILEVA MARIC
Milan.
Wednesday.
[3
October
1900]
Dear Doxerl!
Soon I will
really
have
a
bad conscience for not
having
written
to
you
frequently enough lately,
even
though
I
wouldn't be able to
say
exactly when it
was
that I wrote to
you
the last time. In fact, I
shouldn't make
you angry anymore,
now
that
we are
to
see
each other
again
so
soon,
because of the
scolding,
but he is
just dumb,
your
Johannsel.
I
am
glad
that
your
sister will be coming after all.
We
will
cure
her homesickness
&
other
whims,
even
though
I
cannot do it in
Serbian. So, the sledging has
made the
things
turn out
all right.
There is
nothing
like
a
female!
(Of
course,
as a
little natural
scientist,
you
are
always excepted
in such
considerations.)
I have
now
prolonged
my
stay here until Sunday morning, because
now
I feel
quite
good here. Even
though
with hesitation and
grudgingly,
my
old folks withdrew from the
fight
about Dockerl when
they
saw
that they
must
lose. Now
they rejoice
in the good weather
&
save me
from
any
further debates. Hurwitz has
not
yet written
anything
further,
but I have
hardly
any
doubts.
Michele
has already noticed that I like
you,
because,
even
though
I didn't tell him almost
anything about
you,
he said, when I told him
that I must
now
go to
Zurich
again:
"He
surely
wants to
go
to his
[woman]
colleague,
what else would draw him
to
Zurich?" I
replied,
"But unfortunately she is not yet there."
I
prodded
him
very
much
to
become
a
Dozent
[university lecturer],
but I doubt
very
much that
he'll
do
it. He
simply
doesn't want to let himself and his
family
be
supported by
his
father,
this is after all
quite
natural. What
a
waste of his
truly outstanding intelligence.
In
physical chemistry
I
am now
quite
well versed. I
am
delighted
by the
accomplishments
attained in this field in the last
30 years.
You will
enjoy
it
when we'll
go
over
it together. The physical
methods of
investigation
employed
are
also
very
interesting. The
grandest of all is the
theory
of ions, which has
splendidly proved
itself in the
most
diverse
areas.
The results
on
capillarity, which I
recently
found in Zurich,
seem
to
be
totally
new
despite
their
simplicity.
When
we come
to
Zurich,
we
shall seek to
get
empirical
material
on
the
subject
through
Kleiner. If
a
law of nature
emerges
from this,
we
will send
it
to
Wiedemann's Annalen.
At present the
ex-groom
Fritz Winteler is
visiting
with
Anna;
he
is
a
disgusting
shop-talker
&
will
again
be Assistent in Darmstadt.
You too don't like the
philistine
life
any
longer,
don't
you?!
He who tasted
freedom cannot stand the chains
any
longer.
How
lucky
I
am
to
have found
in
you
a
creature who is
my
equal, who is
as
strong
and
independent
as
I
am
myself! Except with
you,
I
feel alone with
everybody.
Many
affectionate kisses from
your
Albert
Regards
to your
loved
ones!
Dolderstr. 17.
152