x l i i I N T R O D U C T I O N T O V O L U M E 1 5 attempted to make Marie jealous by mentioning other young women he had en- countered (Vol. 1, 16b). Einstein mentioned to Marie his difficulties in being a disciplined correspon- dent, an issue he would often return to in later years (Vol. 1, 15a). He allows glimpses into his career ambitions as well: on the eve of his departure from Aarau to take up his university studies at the ETH, he reported a conversation with the rec- tor of the Kantonsschule during which he was told that he possessed the prerequi- sites for an academic career and was advised not to take up a position as a schoolteacher (Vol. 1, 27a). This move to Zurich in the fall of 1896 seems to have spelled the end of their romantic relationship. By next spring, remorseful for the heartache he had caused Marie, Einstein bemoaned his fate as a “mere schoolboy” who had nothing to offer her. The specifics of their estrangement are lacking, but it does appear that, while both of them struggled, Einstein blamed himself for the end of their romance (Vol. 1, 31a and 33a). He tried to reestablish contact with Marie two years later, but the outcome of this attempt remains unclear (Vol. 1, 53b). In a surprising turn of events hitherto unknown to scholars, three letters and one postcard written by Einstein in 1909–1910 reveal that his love for Marie was rekin- dled at that time, more than a decade after their first relationship had ended. They apparently had a brief romantic encounter in 1909, by which time Einstein had al- ready been married for over six years to Mileva Mariü. But Marie seems to have ignored his subsequent advances, eliciting feelings of utmost anguish in Einstein. In his despair, he wrote in September 1909 that he felt “as if dead in this life filled with obligations, without love and without happiness,” decrying his “failed love, failed life, that’s how it always reverberates to me” (Vol. 5, 177a and 198a). By the summer of 1910, most likely after learning of Marie’s engagement, Einstein wrote: “it seemed to me as if I were watching my grave being dug. The residual joy that still remained for me has been destroyed” (Vol. 5, 218a). II. Electron Solutions, The Problem of Motion, and Metric-Affine Field Theory Yuri Germanovich Rabinovich was a young mathematician working at the Univer- sity of Odessa when he was arrested in 1922. He escaped that same year and, together with his wife, left Russia via Istanbul. He eventually arrived in the United States, changed his name to George Y. Rainich, and became a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University (see Illustration 29).[6] His first contact with Einstein was facilitated by Jerome Alexander, a colloid chemist, who had commissioned Rainich to translate Einstein’s paper on critical opalescence (Einstein 1910d [Vol. 3, Doc. 9]) into English. Rainich not only translated the paper but also added