V O L U M E 8 , D O C U M E N T 2 8 7 b 3 9
of oil on water, as you can easily imagine, knowing
me.[4]
The discrepancy also in
the unexpressed views of life separates people. Contact is always upheld, however,
through the purely intellectual, especially physics, of course.– You’ll be receiving
the money within a few weeks, in the course of which the exchange rate is threat-
ening to shoot up extraordinarily. But I would not like to incur any debts in Swit-
zerland as long as ever possible and also not touch my wife’s
dowry,[5]
because I’m
wary that the money I’m sending into Switzerland under current conditions is still
being used to best advantage. Meanwhile the local bourgeoisie are basking in the
surplus of money here, which they interpret as wealth. Right now I am happily rel-
ishing the fact that my Albert is now kindly disposed toward me again. He already
wrote me two genuinely childish and cheerful letters, which downright touched
me.[6]
Your influence has surely contributed strongly. From the last one I gather
that my wife recuperated from the most recent
relapse.[7]
I am not going to bore
you anymore with meddlesome medical questions but will take everything as it
comes. When I come to Switzerland for Easter, or perhaps a little later, I probably
won’t want to stay right in Zurich, because it could offend my wife and children
again if I don’t visit them in the apartment. Best would be if I stayed in the coun-
tryside near Zurich so that we can see each other
often.[8]
Then, if at all possible, I
would also like to look up Romain Rolland, if he doesn’t feel visits by strangers are
bothersome.[8]
I cannot bring myself to write, because, strangely enough, I cannot
find the right way out. Scientifically speaking I haven’t accomplished anything
special but am pleased with the enthusiastic reception that the general theory of
relativity is encountering among my professional colleagues, also in England and
America. No war or human delusions penetrate into this sanctum. I won’t leave
Switzerland before you have really absorbed this matter, as far as is possible with-
out mathematics.
Hearty greetings to you from your
A. Einstein.
Vol. 8, 287b. To Heinrich Zangger
[Berlin,] Tuesday, 16 January
[1917][1]
Dear friend Zangger!
Today I approach you with a request that perhaps only you can fulfill for me.
Recently my stomach has been bothering me more and more frequently and my ap-
pearance became so desperate that I gave in to my
cousin’s[2]
insistence and, con-
trary to my most ingrained principles, went to the
doctor.[3]
He found a chronic
inflammation of the stomach with 50% more acidity in the gastric juice than nor-
mal. The man prescribed a diet for me, the carrying out of which entails foods that