But
Albert Einstein's mother
was
still able to enjoy her son's
importance.
A
tall
woman,
in radiant health, her
gray eyes
gazed out
at the
world, often
with
a
waggish twinkle. She possessed
a
sound
native wit. Her
feelings
were
seldom
given
free rein and,
although
accustomed to
an
opulent
household, she
adjusted
-
with
difficulty,
but with
understanding
-
to
her altered circumstances.
Married
at
17, she learned early about the realities of life and
always maintained
a
certain practical
sense,
though basically she had
a warm
and
caring
nature. She
was
very
fond of music and
played
the
piano splendidly.
Perseverance
and
patience
were
characteristic of
her,
as
evidenced, for example, in her complicated and
time-consuming
needlework.
YOUTH
Albert Einstein
was
born in Ulm
on
14 March 1879. At his birth
his mother
was
shocked
at
the
sight
of the back of his head, which
was
extremely large and angular, and she feared she had given birth
to
a
deformed child. But the doctor reassured her, and after
a
few weeks
the
shape
of the skull
was
normal. The child,
very
heavy
from the
outset,
was
always quiet and
required
little
care.
He would play
by
himself for hours. His
grandma,
on
first seeing him
some
time later,
threw
up
her hands in
surprise,
and
repeated
over
and
over
again:
"Much too fat! Much
too
fat!".
Otherwise, he developed slowly in
childhood, and he had such
difficulty
with
language
that those
around him feared he would
never
learn to speak. But this fear also
proved unfounded. When the
2.5-year-old
was
told of the arrival of
a
little sister with whom he could play, he imagined
a
kind of toy, for
at
the sight of this
new
creature he asked, with great disappointment,
"Yes, but where
are
its wheels?" The children
of family and relatives
often got together in his
parents' garden
in
Munich.
Albert
refrained from joining their boisterous
games,
however, and
occupied
himself with
quieter
things. When he occasionally did take part, he
was
regarded
as
the obvious arbiter
in all disputes. Since children
usually
retain
a
very
keen and
unspoiled
instinct
for the exercise
of
justice,
the general
recognition
of his
authority
indicates that
his
ability
to
think
objectively
had developed early.
His
early thoroughness in thinking
was
also reflected in
a
characteristic,
if
strange,
habit.
Every
sentence he
uttered,
no
matter
how routine, he
repeated
to
himself
softly, moving
his
lips.
This odd habit
persisted
until his seventh
year.
At the
age
of five he received his first instruction at home from
a
woman
teacher. Music lessons
on
the violin
began
at the
same
time.
The usually calm small boy had inherited from grandfather Koch
a
tendency toward violent temper
tantrums.
At such moments his face
would
turn
completely
yellow,
the
tip
of his
nose
snow-white, and he
was no
longer
in control of himself. On
one
such occasion he grabbed
a
chair and struck at his
teacher,
who
was
so
frightened that she
ran
away
terrified and
was
never
seen
again.
Another time he threw
a
large bowling ball
at
his little sister's head;
a
third time he used
a
child's hoe to knock
a
hole in her head. This should suffice to
show that it
takes
a
sound skull to be the sister of
an
intellectual.
This violent
temper disappeared during his early school
years.
As
is
well
known, in
Germany
one uses
the polite form "Sie" for
adults and for people who
are
not
members of one's family, while "Du"
xviii