V O L . 1 2 , D O C U M E N T 3 2 4 a 1 9 2 1 9 It was with great pleasure that I was able to meet you personally, and I hope that we can again enjoy such agreeable hours together as those we spent in Princeton. With warm regards from your A. Einstein Vol. 12, 324a. To Maja Winteler-Einstein [Berlin,] 14 December 1921 Dear Sister, It saddens me that you are finding it so difficult and worrying about it.[1] I hope that when this letter arrives, Pauli will be back on the path to recovery. Up there one is certainly quite lonely I can vividly imagine that, the housekeeping requiring a great deal of effort. Here too everyone is sick, except me. Elsa has a renal pelvic infection and chronic cystitis, the children have liver trouble, though Ilse is at least able to get up.[2] It was interesting in Holland lots of work, so that my current ex- istence seems like rest and relaxation.[3] It is terribly cold at our house and the heat- ing is presently not working. We are freezing. I wrote to the bank in Z[urich].[4] There seems to be a mix-up of names or a problem caused by the names being the same. Hopefully my letter will suffice to set things straight. Today I appeared be- fore the court as an expert on patents in an interesting trial. It concerned the em- ployment of a property of our ears, the lack of complete simultaneity of the auditory impressions in the two ears when interpreting the direction of sound.[5] Thus we are capable of perceiving temporal differences down to 1/100,000 second. What a work of art God has made in us, and yet we are so despicable in other re- spects. It was beautiful in Italy, where you are, and also in Bologna and Padua.[6] Such cozy places no longer exist elsewhere in the world. If I could freely choose my home according to my taste, I would also go to Italy for the rest of my days. That will remain a pious hope! Best wishes for a good recovery, your Albert