4 7 2 D O C U M E N T 4 7 1 A P R I L 1 9 2 5
471. To Elsa and Margot Einstein
[Buenos Aires,] 3 April 1925
My dears,
Yesterday I received your first letter, dear Else, with the many reports of illness.
I hope everything is well again, as it should be. On the ship I regretted very much
not having taken
Margot[1]
along, but now it has proved right, after all. I think I’ll
convert all of you against medicine, yet! I now have one week of hubbub in Buenos
Aires behind me. The finest thing was that on 1 Apr. I flew 1,000 m high above
Buenos Aires in an
airplane.[2]
People are very nice and kind to me and the
Wassermann family makes life easy for me in every
way.[3]
If I were living alone
and unprotected in a hotel, I could not have endured it. One week (from the 7th to
14th, I shall have my peace almost entirely, apart from a trip to Cordoba on 11
Apr.[4]
On 23 Apr. I’ll be traveling to Montevideo and around 1 May to Rio,
whence my ship departs back to Hamburg on the 12th. If only it had already come
that far. This monkey comedy is actually wholly uninteresting and quite straining.
I already spent one evening visiting Robert and am going to be there on another
evening again (Saturday); his boss L. Dreyfus is
here.[5]
He owns a billion francs
and is so cheap as to sleep in Robert’s bed instead of in a hotel. I’ll not go on an-
other such trip again, not even if it’s compensated better; it’s one big drudgery. The
country here is, oddly, exactly as I had imagined: New York, mellowed somewhat
by southern European races, but precisely as superficial and soulless. I wouldn’t
want to be here. I’ll be going to Cordoba for just a short while, so I’ll scarcely have
anything to do with
N[icolai].[6]
Your Mrs.
Hirsch[7]
didn’t know who you were,
but finally I did manage to make contact. It’s a house full of precious artwork, drip-
ping in wealth. Her husband is one of the most powerful men of money in
Argentina,[8]
an interesting person to look at once. The Argentine minister of for-
eign
affairs[9]
comes regularly to my lectures—as a sign of genuine democracy,
where nobody is too good for learning. But on the whole, nothing but money and
power counts here, as in North America. But there are better ones among the
young, as in America.
Warm regards from your
Albert.
I have half the lectures behind me, thank God. I hope all of you are in good health.