2 7 8 D O C U M E N T S 1 5 9 – 1 6 1 O C T O B E R 1 9 2 0
In notifying you upon instruction about this election I ask you please to an-
nounce your acceptance to us as soon as possible and sign respectfully,
The managing secretary of the
Society of German Scientists and Physicians,
B.
Rassow.[4]
159. To Hedwig Born
[Hechingen, 1 October 1920]
Best regards from the most romantic point of our expedition. Here actual con-
sciousness has not yet been discovered—so it seems; in any case, I’m dozing
off.[1]
160. From Luther P. Eisenhart[1]
Paris, 14 Vendôme Place, 1 October 1920
[See documentary edition for English version.]
161. From Max and Hedwig Born
Frankfurt-am-M[ain], 2 October 1920
Dear Einsteins,
Judging from your
postcard,[1]
Hechingen must be a charming, sleepy haven,
just right to let the excitement subside that you, to our distress, had to endure here
and in [Bad]
Nauheim.[2]
Nor do we want to disturb your “dozing sensibility” with
effusive letter writing; it is very healthy when even friends leave one’s conscious-
ness, and I have the feeling that we have to disappear like that just now. There is
actually nothing more invasive than “sympathy”; it is an intrusion into a friend’s
life, an emotional denuding that embarrasses one later.
So, before we sink out of sight, like Punch and Judy on the stage, we approach
you with two more requests, whose fulfillment I leave in your hands, dear Mrs.
Elsa! That is, that you remind your husband sometime: 1. That your husband write
to Mrs. Hoff, 57 Güntersburg Allee. That really would not be a waste of precious
time; for such people are few and far between.