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Full text of "THE DRAMA OF ALBERT EINSTEIN"

101 774 



THE DRAMA OF ALBERT EINSTEIN 



By Antonina Vallentin 



THE DRAMA. OF ALBERT EINSTEIN 
H. G. WELLS 

Tens i SAW: A LIFE OF GOYA 

MIRABEAU 
LEONARDO DA VINCI 

FRUSTRATION: STRESEMANtf's RACE WITH DEATH 
POET IN EXILE: *i'f$ K LIFE OF HEINRICH HEINE 



EINSTEIN AT THE WINDOW OF HIS STUDY, PRINCETON 
"God does not play at dice/* 



Tht DRAMA of 
ALBERT EINSTEIN 



by Antonina Vallentin 



TRANSLATED BY MOURA BUDBERG 




Doubleday 6- Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y., 1954 



Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 54-5715 

Copyright, 1954, by Antonina Valkntin 

Att Rights Reserved 
Printed in the United States 

at 

The Country Life Press, Garden City, tf.Y. 
First Edition 

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOTTE JACOBI 



THE DRAMA OF ALBERT EINSTEIN 



God does not play at dice. 

ALBERT EINSTEIN 



Chapter I 



ALBERT EINSTEIN has never quite accepted the fact that 
he is a celebrity. Few men have been quite so spectacularly 
and steadily successful, but fame is no more to Einstein than 
a traveling companion he manages to forget it from time 
to time, but there it is, always beside him, irritating him by 
its very permanency. It is not part of his real nature and to 
understand him properly one has to forget about it. 

Albert Einstein's life has been a constant struggle between 
his love of anonymity and the burdens of his fame, and at 
times only his sense of humor has saved Tn'm from complete 
exasperation. He has never let himself be carried away by the 
enthusiasm he provokes. He bows without embarrassment 
to the frenzied applause which greets him, but there is a 
conspiratorial twinlde in his eye for his relations and friends 
as if calling them to witness that these strange proceedings 
have nothing to do with him. His smile of amusement is 
always tinged with the same faint surprise, as though he 
recognizes that the crowd has to have an idol but still cannot 

- 9 



imagine why they should have picked on him to fill the role. 

The British Ambassador to Berlin, Sir Horace Rumbold, 
once told him the story of how his son, arriving from school, 
had asked with one foot still on the train: "Daddy, have you 
met Einstein?" When the Ambassador had to admit that he 
had not yet had that honor, the boy shrugged his shoulders 
pityingly, implying that his father had wasted his time in 
Berlin. "I was quite withered by his contempt," said Sir 
Horace. Einstein shook his head, amused yet puzzled. "I 
really don't know why it is," he said, "that, having written 
a few papers that only a handful of people in the whole world 
are able to understand, I have apparently acquired such 
fame." He spoke with detachment, as though describing 
some peculiar phenomenon. He evidently considered the 
problem insoluble, but he spoke with astonishment as well as 
resignation. 

The contrast between his almost legendary reputation and 
its esoteric origins is, in fact, striking. One of Einstein's 
assistants describes how, around 1917, a physicist talking to 
Sir Arthur Eddington, the famous English astronomer and 
one of the scientists most instrumental to Einstein's glory, 
said: "You, Sir Arthur, are one of the three men in the world 
who understand the theory of relativity." A slightly pained 
expression crossed Eddington's face and his questioner 
hastened to add: "There's no need to be embarrassed, Pro- 
fessor, you are much too modest." 

"It's not a question of modesty," protested Sir Arthur, "I 
was only asking myself who the third could be." 

But there must be some reason why admiration for Ein- 
stein has reached such a high spiritual level and has pene- 
trated so deeply into the minds of the masses. He has caught 

10 - 



the imagination of the man in the street in Paris, London, 
Berlin, and Tokyo. When a film on Einstein was shown at 
the Museum of Natural History in New York the scene he- 
came a riot which necessitated police intervention. It would 
take a philosopher and a sociologist together to analyze the 
extent of Einstein's fame and the sensational forms it has 
taken. A study of this curious phenomenon, the homage of 
the humble to the great, would be a major contribution to 
our understanding of our times. 

This fame, the like of which few living men have ex- 
perienced, has remained unaff ected by passing tastes, changes 
in values, and contemporary problems. Einstein is, as some- 
body remarked, the only immovable idol of our troubled age. 
This celebrity has often been tested, and has sometimes 
been made the subject of jokes. Two American students 
once made a bet. They addressed an envelope to "Professor 
Albert Einstein, Europe." It arrived at its destination with 
the normal delay. "How excellent the postal service is!" was 
Einstein's only comment. 

There is nothing more difficult than to escape from the sort 
of mesmerism which a great name seems to exercise: but 
to understand Einstein properly, it is essential to try to break 
free from it. It is equally important, too, to free oneself from 
the spell exercised by his appearance the immense head 
made even larger by the huge shock of hair: a striking head 
too well known from photographs. With age Einstein has 
gained in intensity of expression: most certainly his peculiar 
fascination has increased. As a young man and even in 
middle age, Einstein had regular features, plump cheeks, a 
round chin masculine good looks of the type that played 
havoc at the turn of the century. His short nose, with its 

11 



finely chiseled bridge, spread outward toward the nostrils, 
giving an impression o sensuality. His large, generous mouth 
looked red under his black mustache, and contrasted with 
his dull skin with its slightly sallow tinge. The lower half 
of his face might have belonged to a sensualist who found 
plenty of reasons to love life and enjoy it. His round head 
was finely set on his powerful neck with its pale, easily tanned 
skin. His large, square shoulders were those of a standard- 
bearer. His muscular body grew heavy in later life, not in 
the way that the bodies of inactive people do, carelessly and 
sluggishly, but haphazardly and reluctantly, like those who 
retire from a life in the open explorers, sea captains. But 
when you came to the eyes this first impression vanished: 
they were dark, compelling, slightly protruding eyes. The 
picture of the fine physical specimen in love with life had to 
give way to a new concept of him. 

He might have been a poet, or certainly a musician. These 
brilliant, sparkling eyes might have been lost in a dream of 
harmony, as if the dreamer were one with the sound. His 
hands also seemed made for a violin. Hands which were 
large and sensual, judging from the palms, narrowed toward 
the tapering fingers, with rounded nails the hands and 
fingers of a musician. But above the striking eyes came the 
forehead. It was not particularly high in itself, or impres- 
sively wide. But the lobes were strong, stretching the pol- 
ished skin, and almost forming a semicircle as they descended 
to the temples. This bone structure prepared one for the 
exceptional. Even if the head had been shaved, the space 
tinder it would have seemed vast, but it was overhung by 
his hair, which was black as the night when he was young. 
It formed a turbulent background for his face, as it stood 

12 * 



off from his forehead, rebellious and straight, full of an in- 
dependent vitality. Today his hair is spectacularly white. The 
first silver streaks that appeared ran from both sides of his 
forehead, so that he looked like Michelangelo's Moses. As 
they increased, the silver and black locks, flowing in the wind, 
looked almost iridescent. 

Today his appearance is unforgettable. It attracts imme- 
diate attention. One feels either immeasurably flattered or 
stupidly embarrassed whenever one is near Einstein. But he 
himself seems impervious to the sensation he creates. His 
self-assurance is not like that of the famous personalities who 
walk through a crowd with complete indifference. His un- 
self-consciousness is so complete that one can hardly believe 
he is not putting it on. He actually does not realize that there 
is anything unusual going on around him. It is true that he 
can see the attention fixed on him; he is aware of an atmos- 
phere of respect; he hears his name mentioned all around 
him; and he is even conscious, secretly, of the bores he wishes 
to avoid. But all this attention means no more to him than 
the noise of the windmill to the sleeping miller. It is not, and 
never has been, a source of amusement to him. On the other 
hand, it has ceased to annoy him. 

Einstein has achieved a detachment which few other 
people have ever attained. He is equally disassociated from 
the impression he makes on the world and from the reper- 
cussions of his fame. He was incidentally responsible for one 
of the rare revealing sentences about himself when he 
thanked G. B. Shaw for the flattering words "addressed to 
my mythical namesake who makes my life a singular bur- 
den." This detachment is so complete that very often in his 
presence it is difficult to remember that one is indeed with 

IS 



him. It would be so easy to think one was in the presence o 
his double yet even the doubles of celebrities are conscious 
of having something exceptional about them. Einstein is un- 
conscious of being exceptional to a degree that is difficult to 
imagine. I have even had the suspicion that he really believes 
himself to be exactly like everyone else. 

One day at Princeton, in the small, quiet university town 
where he has lived for years, he wanted to see the film The 
Life of Emile Zola. He arrived at the movie theater with his 
assistant, bought tickets and went in, and then discovered 
that the performance would not start for another quarter of 
an hour. They decided to go for a walk. 

TBut we have given up our tickets/* Einstein murmured 
anxiously to the ticket collector. "Will you recognize us?" 

The man laughed, thinking Einstein must be joking. <C I 
dare say we will, Professor Einstein/' he grinned. 

In any case, Einstein blames the unflagging zeal of pho- 
tographers for the fact that people instantly recognize him, 
and he has a grievance against them for depriving him of his 
anonymity. He blames them for the daily nuisances he is 
subjected to. Even today he cherishes this grievance to such 
an extent that once, when he was being photographed re- 
cently, he stuck out his tongue at the cameraman. The result 
was an immense tongue in the middle of an immense face, 
with wisps of white hair standing on end round his head, like 
serpents! This terrible picture was widely reproduced in the 
press, a schoolboy's prank turned into a nightmare. 

While one is trying to analyze the elements that are foreign 
to Einstein's character, one might as well include his past. 
Curiosity spurred on by his fame has done all it could to 
explore his origins and reconstruct the surroundings in which 

14 



he was born, and discern the subtle influences that he might 
have felt. People have tried to find out what sort of a child 
he was, what pangs of adolescence he suffered, in order to 
link the exceptional with the commonplace. But biographical 
data are an inadequate background to a portrait of Einstein. 
He might have come from anywhere or from nowhere. He 
has mentioned the "vague isolation" that penetrates his 
relationships, even with those closest to him. There is, in- 
deed, something very like a void around him. He once wrote: 
"I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, 
nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family." But 
the background to Einstein's portrait has a certain individ- 
uality, and some of the characteristics of his origin have left 
their traces on his life. 

I once visited Hechingen in the Hohenzollern Sigmaringen 
region, a little town that was the home of Einstein's family 
and the birthplace of the cousin who became his second wife. 
The Swabian imprint remains even on those who desert it 
early for foreign lands. The thick accent of the district often 
remains in their speech, especially in a circle of intimates, 
and there is a special Swabian good-natured humor, curiously 
like English humor, and a taste for practical jokes. A friend 
of Einstein's family, also born in Hechingen, made the 
journey with me and tried to explain the peculiarities of the 
Einstein family. Petit bourgeois, they were not poor enough 
to have to struggle hard for their living, or rich enough to 
lead a life apart from their humbler neighbors, who still lived 
very close to the soil. They lived in a sheltered and peaceful 
atmosphere, reacting against speed, and reluctant to change 
either their habits or their friendships. Like all countries that 
enjoy life and good food, Swabia has its particular tradition 



of cooking and in the uneventful life of the Einsteins local 
dishes played a part as dearly loved as nursery rhymes. 
, The problems that agitated the large towns of Germany 
like Munich and Berlin were not so serious in the gentler 
climate of Hechingen. The Jews lived in the same mellow 
atmosphere as everybody else, without much friction with 
their surroundings. The friend who came with ine, whose 
father had also been born in Hechingen, came of an old 
though not orthodox Jewish family. He told me that when 
the time came for him to continue his studies in town his 
father had left him in the care of the parish priest. The priest, 
in his turn, had found nothing astonishing about bringing up 
a small, very gifted Jewish boy, with no thought of alienat- 
ing "him from his religion. Religious tolerance existed quite 
naturally in this atmosphere. Albert Einstein's parents were 
also freethinkers. But their attitude was by no means ag- 
gressive, as is sometimes the case when conversions and 
repudiations have been reached at the price of great inner 
struggles. The family's attitude was tolerant, slightly indif- 
ferent, as frequently happens when one emotion replaces 
another almost unnoticeably. 

A period of industrial expansion emptied the small towns. 
The young Jews of modest circumstances, without inherited 
property, land, or money, without too vast ambitions or too 
striking qualifications, were the first to leave and seek their 
livelihood in the larger towns. 

It was at Ulm, one of the stages of the Einstein family's 
pilgrimage and a town still under Swabian influence, that 
Albert Einstein was born, on March 14, 1879. The next year 
his parents settled in Munich, which was the background of 
his whole childhood. The general trend of the times rather 
than any aptitude for mechanics made Einstein's father set 

- IB 



up a small factory for electrical supplies in Munich. There 
was nothing in this middle-class milieu to explain an out- 
standing destiny and nothing in this commonplace childhood 
to point to an exceptional future. All the members of the 
family who knew Albert as a child or heard his elders speak 
of him described him as almost backward; he learned to talk 
so late that his parents were quite upset about it. In con- 
trast to the childhood tales told about other precocious 
geniuses (to whom one attributes so many true or mythical 
stories of other exceptional childhoods), this family picture 
seemed to underline with a certain satisfaction all that was 
backward in Einstein. The other children in the family took 
comfort in this picture of the famous uncle who learned to 
talk very late, continued to say very little, took in the outside 
world with difficulty, and revealed a deliberate slowness 
in all that he did, which irritated his teachers. One trait seems 
still to link Albert Einstein and the child with the lazy mind; 
his horror of unnecessary words. There is sometimes a hesita- 
tion in his speech and a slight pause at the beginning of his 
sentences as though he were asking himself whether it is 
worth while uttering a word or even taking in what he has 
heard and replying to it. 

"My personal external circumstances," he once wrote, 
"played only a minor role in my thoughts and my emotions." 
This meticulous statement is true only in so far as it concerns 
the positive factors of his life. It ignores the negative side of 
his external circumstances and the provocations that forced 
him out of his detachment. When he did take action, he acted 
with an impatience that arose out of the conflict with his 
otherwise controlled nature: the idea of being stirred by im- 
pulses which were imposed on him from outside angered him. 

It seems particularly important for the future development 

17 



of Albert Einstein that his consciousness of being Jewish and 
of being German was in a way imposed on him from outside, 
rather than awakened spontaneously in him. At the age of 
ten, this reserved child found himself in the atmosphere of 
a German school. The god of discipline reigning there was 
an alien god to "him. The teachers, with their military ap- 
proach, belonged to the type of automaton which antago- 
nized him immediately. He had to face the most contemptible 
of adversaries, which he came to classify later as the "educa- 
tional machine/' At first he certainly did not understand 
either the reasons for his contempt or the damage that edu- 
cation could do to young minds. He could not even say that 
he hated it. According to family legend, this taciturn child, 
who was not given to complaining, did not even seem very 
unhappy. Only long afterward did he identify the tone and 
atmosphere of his schooldays with that of a barracks, the 
negation, in ids opinion, of the human being. 

The horror of constraint did not come to Albert Einstein 
in maturity, in the process of establishing his convictions, 
but was from the beginning an elemental, natural reaction 
in him, like hunger or thirst. As a child he must have realized 
that an open revolt would have been inexpedient and ab- 
surd, that it would only lead to a useless waste of strength, 
and this sense of economy of effort seems to have come to 
him early. With characteristic logic, he simply ignored an 
authority which appeared incomprehensible, and it was an 
attitude he never abandoned. If at times he appeared easy 
to influence, because he bowed before an inescapable situa- 
tion with good grace, his extraordinary powers of concentra- 
tion enabled him to keep his mind altogether unaffected. 

The little boy was faced with the problems of inexorable 

1ft 



German discipline and his Jewish origins at the same mo- 
ment. Liberal-minded Jews of the time, like his parents, tried 
to solve the problem by assimilating themselves as com- 
pletely as possible. A strong family tradition as well as their 
religions indifference prevented them from becoming con- 
verts, but they hoped to be able to merge with the others in 
much the same way as very white-skinned half-castes believe 
they can cross the color line. They had sent their boy to a 
Catholic primary school, where he was the only Jew in his 
class. The first religious education their son received was 
lessons in the catechism. But when faced with the more ad- 
vanced educational machine of the grammar school, it was 
the boy himself who felt the need to escape from attempts 
to mold his mind, and find somewhere the comfort of soli- 
darity. He deliberately assumed the position of a Jew, which 
isolated him from the others, as a starting point in this escape. 
To the astonishment of his parents, he underwent a period 
of religious fervor. When Albert Einstein, at the approach 
of his seventieth birthday, collected a few biographical notes 
which he called "Notes for an Obituary,'* he interpreted this 
religious fervor, this lost paradise of his childhood, as the 
"first attempt to liberate myself from purely personal links/* 
to join something greater, something that was not within 
him. His mind was already ripe for great ambitions. "Percep- 
tion of this world by thought, leaving out everything sub- 
jective," wrote Einstein, "became, partly consciously, partly 
unconsciously, my supreme aim." 

The popularized scientific books which he devoured with 
the curiosity common to his age made him familiar with 
laws that were in striking discord with religious teachings. 
He became aware that in the Bible stories many things 

19 



"could not be true'' With the consistency which he had 
shown in his convictions since childhood, he underwent a 
sudden and complete change of heart. The freethinking at- 
titude which he adopted at the age of twelve was sternly 
belligerent; he himself described it as fanatical. But the 
conclusions he drew from this disastrous experience were'not 
limited to revolt against transmitted beliefs. He felt that he 
had been duped, but not by those who succeeded in awaken- 
ing in him the fervor for the faith of his ancestors, nor by 
the priest who taught him his catechism in the primary 
school. With this need, which already existed in him as a 
child, to find out where responsibility really rested, he rec- 
ognized behind the rabbi, as well as behind the priest, a 
force which, disregarding liberty of thought, made religious 
education compulsory. 'It was a shattering realization," Ein- 
stein recalled many years later. He was also aware that what 
happened to him did not happen to him alone. He saw in the 
whole system of education the deliberate intention of the 
state to mislead youth. 

His suspicion of all authority, joined to the instinctive 
horror of constraint which obsessed him, grew into one of his 
rooted principles. He remained skeptical in regard to all 
convictions imposed by a social scale and "this attitude, like 
suspicion, never abandoned me," he wrote, "although some 
of its violence was removed when I understood better the 
relations of causality." 

What remained of this first defiance of established con- 
cept? The child could have fallen back into the narrow 
circle of selfish preoccupations; he could have been content 
to relate everything to himself, but even in his childhood 
Albert Einstein did not allow disillusionment to lead him to 

20 - 



a denial of wider aspirations. A concept of the world removed 
from the myopia of personal interests, a concept within the 
limits of his intellectual comprehension, remained his ulti- 
mate aim at that time. "For a man like me," he recalls, "the 
change brought by development lies in the fact that the 
principal interest detaches itself, little by little, and more 
and more, from all that is transitory and personal, in order 
to devote itself to the task of comprehending life through 
thought" 

This comprehension must have taken place slowly, pene- 
trating the consciousness of the child during his dreary 
school studies, for which he revealed no special aptitude and 
no premature gift. Only one small fact emerges from his early 
childhood to foretell his future vocation. Albert Einstein re- 
membersor believes that he can remember, perhaps because 
it has often been repeated to him since that one day when 
he was about five he received a compass from his father as 
a present. The parents were amazed when they saw the child, 
usually phlegmatic and absent-minded, show a passionate 
interest for the little finger that vibrated of its own accord as 
though propelled by a mysterious force. He had already 
realized the relation existing between an external cause and 
the effect; he knew that things moved because they were 
touched. But this finger of the compass behaved in a manner 
that never ceased to surprise him and for which he found 
no explanation. An infinitesimal seed must have been sown 
at that moment. "The evolution of our world of ideas," Ein- 
stein says, recalling this scene of his early childhood, "is in a 
certain sense a constant struggle against the 'miraculous.* * 

A second "miracle" took place when he was twelve. Per- 
haps it made so definite an impression on him because his 

21 



paradise of faith had been shattered; perhaps the subcon- 
scious need of compensation that draws miracles to our path 
had left the child particularly receptive. The event that 
acquired such large and important proportions for him was 
nothing more than a small book which he received at the 
beginning of the school year, a popular textbook on Euclidean 
geometry. He never forgot the enormous impression this book 
left on him. Later on he wrote: "Anyone who was not trans- 
ported by this book in youth was not born to be a theoretical 
searcher/* Even when he himself reconsidered this "miracle" 
of his youth, he remembered how wonderful it was to realize 
for the first time that "man was capable, through the force 
of thought alone, of achieving the degree of stability and 
purity which the Greeks, before anybody else, demonstrated 
to us in geometry/* He remained "fascinated 3 * by mathe- 
matics. 

With this revelation of stability and purity within the 
reach of human effort, the young man felt the ground firm 
under his feet. It was not yet a vocation, or even the begin- 
ning of a rapid, sensational blossoming, of an unleashing of 
spiritual forces in him. He made great progress in mathe- 
matics at school but was backward in most of the other 
subjects. There was nothing to draw attention to him. It was 
significant that even at the moment of his swift rise to glory, 
none of his school companions boasted of friendship with 
him; no teacher claimed to have molded the mind of a genius. 
His former teachers, in fact, did not even remember having 
had him in their classes. 

Einstein believed himself to have profited most from a 
professor of literature who had awakened in him a taste for 
the German classics. He imagined that the interest provoked 

* 22 



by this professor had not remained unnoticed. One day he 
had already begun his staggering career and had just been ap- 
pointed a professor in Zurich a sentimental impulse, or, more 
precisely, the sense of justice that registers spiritual debts, 
gave him the idea to call on his old professor as he was pass- 
ing through Munich. He found a man who had no recollec- 
tion of his pupil. Far from being flattered by the young man's 
gesture, the professor considered it unsolicited and sus- 
picious. He glared distrustfully at his visitor. "He must have 
thought that I had come to borrow money," remarked Ein- 
stein later. He laughed, but there was a tinge of bitterness in 
his laughter, left by a painful interview. But the incident gave 
him a feeling of liberation. Einstein now knew that he owed 
nothing to anybody. 

Although the pupil of the Munich school remained com- 
pletely anonymous, lost in the crowd, eclipsed by studious 
mediocrities, though he was still groping for his own spiritual 
gifts he was morally ripe for his destiny. At the age of fifteen 
he was already completely mature. He knew what he wanted. 
He hated all compromise and had freed himself from all ties. 
Everything within him seemed ready to make the best use 
of outside circumstances. 

His father does not seem to have had sufficient business 
sense to make the Munich enterprise prosper. There was 
nothing to keep him there. He decided to seek his fortune 
elsewhere, and emigrated with his family, including Albert's 
younger sister Maya, to Milan. But the studies of a boy of 
fifteen could not be interrupted, so Albert Einstein remained 
in Munich, and the six months he spent alone there helped 
him to make his decision. It was a strange decision for a boy 
of his age: it was taken without consulting anybody and after 

23 



long periods of solitary meditation, in the same way in which 
he was to reach all later decisions which he declared with a 
calm smile to be irrevocable. 

He left Munich. But he did not leave suddenly, in a mo- 
ment of defiance, like a child deprived of affection and eager 
to return home. To avoid the appearance of running away, 
which might have embarrassed him in the future, he pro- 
cured a medical certificate and departed on grounds of 
health. But he knew he would never return and that nothing 
would make him do so. 

The boy was already experiencing the complete breaks 
and total loyalties of the man. Striking the balance of his 
childhood, he decided to ignore all that he considered wrong 
in it. He decided to leave the Jewish community, in order to 
mark a phase which was definitely over. He also severed 
another tie. When he got to Milan he told his father his 
decision also made entirely on his own to abandon his 
German citizenship. He had no definite plan in view and no 
security to exchange for that he was abandoning. He had no 
ties elsewhere. He was simply freeing himself from beliefs 
he had outgrown, as one throws off false loyalties'. There was 
nothing to make one foresee that he would one day belong 
to the whole world. His native country had failed him and he 
no longer wished to recognize it as his fatherland. The only 
certainty he possessed was his independence. This moral 
independence showed itself even before he had acquired an 
independence of the mind. His confidence that he. had acted 
on a moral jmperative preceded his confidence in his own 
intellectual gifts. The boy already revealed himself as the 
man he wanted to be, deliberately uninhibited, obstinately 
firm, and self-sufficient. 

. 24 



Chapter II 



"WHEN I was still a rather precocious young man, I already 
realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations 
that most men pursue throughout their lives,** wrote Einstein 
in his biographical notes. 

This precocious young man launched himself into what 
was, in fact, a mad adventure. Nothing that usually makes for 
success in an adventure spurred him on: neither ambition, 
nor taste for money, nor a desire to assert himself. The 
secret of his success lay elsewhere. It lay in something nega- 
tive: not in what he did possess, but in what he did not 
possess and never would. It lay in his freedom from encum- 
brances: he traveled as light in the beginning as he was to 
travel all his life. 

This conviction that most human effort is futile liberated 
Einstein not only from the atmosphere in which his young 
days had been spent but from everything that he had hitherto 
absorbed. He seemed to have forgotten, or not to have wished 
to remember, everything he had been taught in his child- 

25 * 



hood. One might have thought that he had never known any 
o the established conventions. All the children in his family 
were dressed in "Sunday clothes" and brought into the 
drawing room with reminders to "say how-do-you-do nicely 
to the lady/* Albert Einstein retained nothing of the behavior 
and" traditions of a well-to-do bourgeoisie. He confronted 
society as though he had been born on another planet. 

If his parents* life had not been easy at times, he had never 
undergone privations. He freed himself from material bonds 
as he did from everything else, almost without noticing it, 
but he did not pride himself in the least on acquiring this 
liberty because it was essential to him He had no require- 
ments, so that one might Ijave suspected "him of a longing 
for austerity. On the contrary, in middle life he was not at all 
insensible to beauty and the good things of life. There was 
vitality in every inch of his great body, but he despised with 
all the violence that contempt aroused in him the enjoyment 
of mere material satisfaction. "'Well-being and happiness,** 
he wrote one day, "never appeared to me as absolute aims. 
I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambi- 
tions of a pig/* 

He has firmly refused to adapt himself in any way to the 
demands of his fame. He has maintained a personal, simple 
way of questioning the necessity of an action, or expected 
behavior, or an attitude. In vain one would explain to hfn> 
the customary formalities, and those who had not known 
him long would explain patiently, as to a backward child. 
They^would repeat: "This is done . . /* "Why is it done?" 
he would ask. Until you noticed his smile he seemed like a 
malicious child. "Tails? Why tails? I never had any and never 
missed them.** Once his wife employed all her powers of 

26 



persuasion, her charm and humor, to make him order evening 
clothes, for one solemn occasion, and after violent resistance 
from him a compromise was eventually reached: a dinner 
jacket, instead of tails. Afterward he merely said, yes, he did 
have a dinner jacket in his cupboard which he was even 
ready to exhibit, until the day came when "the fine thing," 
as he called it, had grown too small and was no longer pre- 
sentable. 

He defended himself against submission to conventions 
with obstinacy and wit. He was only really at his ease in an 
open-necked shirt and sandals. He preferred old clothes a 
mended sweater, an ancient waistcoat to any material 
strange to the touch: a shabby dressing gown was always 
more comfortable than any grand new one given him as a 
present. Luxurious gifts had a way of disappearing from one 
day to the next: they were given away to some poor wretch 
whom Einstein would persuade to hurry off discreetly with 
his parcel before the family noticed it. 

In his battle against material things Einstein showed his 
pity for those who complicate their lives with the trifles they 
carry around with them. When he was invited to a series of 
conferences at the Sorbonne, the German Ambassador to 
France, Von Hoesch, insisted that he should stay at the 
embassy. He could not refuse. But against the luxurious set- 
ting of the former home of Josephine Beauharnais Einstein 
appeared completely incongruous. "You know, Einstein has 
arrived with only one pair of shoes,** the Ambassador con- 
fided to me. "My valet has to clean them several times a day." 
Einstein in his turn complained that his shoes were con- 
stantly disappearing. "I keep telling the good man that I'm 
going out, that it is still raining, that he shouldn't polish 

* 27 



them when they are going to get dirty right away, but he 
doesn't understand me." 

One day when he had come to see us in Geneva, I noticed 
as he was leaving that it was raffling in torrents. He had 
nothing on his head, so I offered him one of my husband's 
hats. "What for? I knew it would rain, that's why I didn't 
take my hat it dries less quickly than my hair surely that 
is obvious!'* he said to me, laughing. 

Once he left for London with a suitcase well packed by his 
wife. He returned to Berlin with all the clothes still folded 
and untouched. He had had no opportunity to wear them, 
he said. He was wearing shoes but no socks, and explained 
to me triumphantly: *Tve discovered that one can easily 
wear shoes without socks socks, you know, get holes in them 
my wife does nothing but mend them. Ill never wear any 
again now that I can do without them." The argument 
seemed conclusive to him. 

In all this quiet victory of Einstein's over material encum- 
brances was reflected the memory of what happened when 
life had been hard for him after he left his sheltered child- 
hood. The privations of a penniless boy in a foreign country 
taught him a lesson he remembered all his life. The founda- 
tion of security on which the youth of sixteen had based his 
future life was flimsy. He had to get a job quickly, to earn 
his living. He had given up his matriculation when leaving 
Munich and now he had to make up for it, as no free career 
was open to him without it 

His father's business prospered no better in Italy than it 
had in Germany, and he was unable to help his son. Other 
members of the family had done better. Dispersed over all 
the world, they had maintained the solidarity, characteristic 

. 98 . 



of Jewish families, which does not imply affection so much 
as a tradition of mutual responsibility. Albert Einstein aimed 
at the Polytechnic in Zurich and hoped his mathematics 
would enable him, to pass his entrance exams. Rich relations 
helped out by supplying a hundred Swiss francs a month, 
but they had no suspicion of the forces they were helping 
to unleash, and one of the most remarkable scientific careers 
in history was launched out of family charity, exercised more 
from a sense of duty than any confidence in the boy's gifts 
or any interest in science. 

His career began with a failure. His knowledge of mathe- 
matics was not enough to make up for gaps in other fields. 
Although he was morally mature beyond his age, the young 
man had to return to the school desk like any dunce or time 
waster. It was the ordinary canton school in the small Swiss 
town of Aarau. One of his teachers took a particular interest 
in the strange youth, such a mixture of self-confidence and 
shyness, of indifference and curiosity. The fact that he was in 
a small town must have helped TIJTYI overcome the dismay of 
his initial failure, for he had never liked the bustling life of 
big cities. Long solitary walks in fields or forests are still 
better for his work than hunching over a desk. Watching 
him kick the ground, on a walk, as though testing it with his 
toe before putting his boot down, one would suppose that 
some strange atavism remains in him, as if he had inherited 
a love of the soil from generations of peasants. In Aarau the 
hills were close by and Nature gave him self-confidence as 
no human being could have done. 

After passing the examinations for the Zurich Polytechnic, 
he decided to devote himself to teaching instead of specializ- 
ing as an engineer, his original intention. 



"There is such a thing as a passionate desire to understand, 
just as there is a passionate love for music. This passion is 
common with children, but it usually vanishes as they grow 
up. Without it, there would be no natural science and no 
mathematics/* Thus Einstein wrote in 1950, in connection 
with his scientific memoir on the theory of generalized 
gravitation. This passion has always remained with him. It 
has never been blunted and it still dominates the man of 
seventy-five, as it guided the young man on his chosen path 
with the sureness of a sleepwalker. The birth of a theory 
that was to shake the world originated with this passion, the 
violence of this curiosity. The question that fascinated the 
youth of sixteen was: What would happen if a man should 
try to imprison a ray of light? The question was naturally 
more complex, but as scientific formulae were beyond me, 
it was with these simple words that Einstein explained what 
he himself considered to be the starting point of his lif ework. 

Once he had asked himself the question, the problem 
haunted him. It was always present as he continued his 
studies at the Polytechnic and struggled with the material 
difficulties in his path. In spite of an intense interest in mathe- 
matics, he decided to study to be a teacher of physics. 
Mathematics, he said to himself, was divided into so many 
specialized fields that any one of them could absorb the short 
span of a man's life. "I was like Buridan's donkey, who could 
not decide which stack of hay to choose,** he said later. His 
choice was dictated by his contempt for automatically ac- 
quired knowledge, which he would have had to absorb be- 
fore reaching essential principles. It sums up his lasting sense 
of economy in all unnecessary intellectual effort. One could 
call it a reluctance to use a very fine instrument for coarse 
work. 



During his first visit to America in 1921, lie was given a 
questionnaire covering all the intellectual equipment a 
student was supposed to carry with him through life, once 
his university studies ended. To one question as to the speed 
of sound, Einstein replied: *T don't know. I don't crowd my 
memory with facts that I can easily find in an encyclopedia." 

Looking back on his years of study, he must have said to 
himself, with regret, that his intuition in the mathematical 
field cannot have been sufficient to enable him to distinguish 
between things of fundamental importance and the heap of 
information with which he could have dispensed. 

In contrast to this resistance to what he considered the 
dead weight of knowledge, the work in the laboratory fasci- 
nated him by its direct contact with experiment. But he 
was forced to proclaim later the absolute priority of pure 
speculation. Summing up this conviction in recently pub- 
lished notes, he writes: "A theory can be checked by experi- 
ment, but there is no path that leads from experiment to a 
theory that has not yet been established." 

This fascination for laboratory work arose from a charac- 
teristic one would not have expected in him. One might have 
thought that, having worked with principles which the man 
in the street could not grasp, he had arrived at a divorce 
from reality. His aloofness from daily chores also might have 
created the impression that there was a screen between him 
and the material side of Jif e. In fact there is nothing of the 
absent-minded scientist about him. The vagueness often 
observed in him is put on, a kind of protection against 
an intrusive presence. Though concentration on his work 
removes him from the outside world, when not so absorbed 
his attention is curiously alert, arrested often in the most 
unexpected way by an apparently uninteresting phenomenon. 

SI 



He is intensely observant: his glance fixes on some detail 
and lingers over something which other people do not even 
notice. His interest will be aroused suddenly by statements 
made by specialists on questions which one would have 
thought alien to his world, secrets of craftsmanship and 
details of engineering. Everything ingenious in the material 
sphere engages his attention. If you watch him handle some 
object, he seems to take possession of it. He does not touch 
things as though he wanted to push them away as people do 
when their thoughts are elsewhere; he follows the outline 
and sounds the surface, seeming to penetrate into all its 
properties. He has a taste for solid things such as steel struc- 
tures; he likes to watch a thing in the making. He feels at 
home in a world of stable laws, in a reality ruled by unaltera- 
ble material facts. 

I saw him one day talking with a building engineer. His 
fingers passed tenderly over the blueprint for a bridge spread 
on the table. He underlined certain details, and showed that 
labor and material could be saved by a better disposition of 
the arches. The engineer watched him with wide-eyed, naive 
surprise. ""People think that Albert is a dreamer/' said Mrs. 
Einstein. Trie really is a very practical man." She seemed 
proud that her husband had his feet on the ground. Had 
Einstein carried out his initial plan of study, he might have 
become a remarkable technician. 

The experiments in the laboratory which so fascinated 
him were the most attractive part of the Polytechnic pro- 
gram. All his life he has retained a distaste for education 
when it stuffs young minds with facts, names, or formulae. 
He is apt to say that one need not go to a university to 
learn these they can be found in books. Education should 

32 




EINSTEIN AND HIS SISTER MAYA AS CHILDREN 

Photos on Einstein family cups. 

"They lived in a sheltered and peaceful atmosphere . . " 




EINSTEIN AND HIS SISTER MAYA, ABOUT 1885 



be devoted wholly to helping young people to think, to give 
them the training no textbook can provide. "It is truly a 
miracle that modern education hasn't completely stifled the 
sacred curiosity of research," he said. As a student, he felt 
deeply the horrible oppression and the constraint of examina- 
tions. He felt as if he were living under the guillotine, in im- 
minent fear of a deadline being put to his time. Now, in his 
seventies, he remembers his years of study with a kind of 
resentment at the time it all took. "I believe that you could 
even ruin the appetite of a healthy animal if you forced it to 
eat under threat of a whip, even when it is not hungry, and 
especially if you made an appropriate choice of the food it 
must swallow." 

Constraint has always been his personal enemy. His whole 
youth was a battle against it. When he uttered the German 
word for it, an abrupt word, with a peculiarly sinister sound, 
Zwang, everything tolerant, humorous, or resigned in his ex- 
pression vanished. He spat out the word as one does a fish- 
bone. While editing his biographical notes in the peace of 
his Princeton study, where no power on earth would seem 
any longer to threaten his absolute liberty, Einstein remem- 
bered the havoc it played with his life. "The constraint was 
so terrifying that after I had passed the final examination, I 
found myself unable to think of any scientific problem for 
almost a year." That year must have been a painful one. He 
had made sacrifices himself in order to secure a livelihood 
independent of family charity. He had often gone hungry. 
He had few needs and was careless in appearance. A misera- 
ble room and an old suit did not upset him, but insufficient 
food was another matter. He never spoke of his privations, 
but his health suffered from it and when he showed signs 

83 



of exhaustion later on, Mrs. Einstein would explain that "it 
was the effect of what he had endured when he was so poor/ 3 
She could not spoil him enough; a picture of the "poor boy" 
haunted her. The serious illness which recently made it 
necessary for him to undergo a grave operation was the price 
paid for the poverty of his youth. 

No matter how hungry he was, Einstein meticulously put 
aside twenty francs from the hundred francs his family gave 
him each month to pay for his naturalization. By the time he 
passed his examination he was a Swiss subject. His papers 
were in order. He asked for what seemed to htm the most 
obvious post that of an assistant, which professors usually 
granted to gifted pupils. But no professor had marked his 
exceptional faculties, none had enough interest in him to 
forward his career. In vain he tried to join the university 
through this little door. What disconcerted him most was 
that the refusals were not even backed by some forceful, 
weighty argument. They left him with a sense of bitterness 
that was rare with Mm. It was not because of the humiliation 
of pleading, or that the refusals undermined his self-confi- 
dence, but because of the hypocrisy he sensed behind the 
conspiracy of silence that confronted him. Once, years after, 
he wrote to an American student who had sent him a passion- 
ate indictment on the injustice of professors, of which she 
felt herself a victim : "I, too, once was treated so by my profes- 
sors, who did not like my spirit of independence, and though 
they needed an assistant, refused to appoint me as one." But 
he wrote to the American further that one only made oneself 
ridiculous by fostering personal resentments. He advised her 
to put her temper in her pocket and her manuscript in her 
desk 

34 



Einstein never harbors grudges. He always hastens to 
forget any wrong done to him personally. He deliberately 
sweeps away from his memory all painful incidents, all his 
most humiliating encounters with stupidity or malice. Once, 
after he had received honorary degrees from many universi- 
ties, he was awarded one by Zurich. He burst into laughter, 
honest laughter with no irony in it, but he read out to us, his 
eyes glittering with amusement, the answer he composed to 
thank the Alma Mater that had shown so little initial interest 
in him for bestowing the honor. He looked like an urchin 
with his tongue in his cheek as he watched our reactions. 

The young man had been forced, owing to this failure, to 
look for a job. He tried for a professorship in physics at a 
lycee, but was unsuccessful, both in Zurich and in smaller 
Swiss towns. Did he really seem so little qualified for the 
post he sought or was it perhaps some apprehension of genius 
which put off the administrators who might otherwise have 
hired him? Einstein still wonders and does not know whether 
he was just too insignificant or whether there was already an 
odor of sulphur about him. He began to answer newspaper 
advertisements, rushing hither and thither when he read of a 
vacancy, any vacancy. He found a post as temporary assist- 
ant in a technical school in Winterthur which kept him going 
for several months. With gratitude he took on a modest post 
as tutor at a boarding school in Schaffihausen, looking after 
two backward boys. He liked the job, but he had his own 
ideas about teaching physics. He lost the job because he 
wanted to teach freely, in his own way. He could find no 
other place in secondary education. 

All his life Einstein has regretted not having been a school- 
teacher. It may be just a sentimental reflex; as a toy coveted 

35 - 



in a poor childhood might haunt a man grown rich. The 
regret is sincere, though it puzzles those who know his lack 
of enthusiasm for regular instruction, and his choice later 
on of positions not entailing the obligations of following a 
scheduled course. His own work and ideas absorbed him to 
such an extent that he tended to propound them before an 
audience ill equipped to understand him. He had no desire 
to impose any moral laws, and even less to exercise authority. 
What he did regret, as a great pleasure that he never experi- 
enced, was the task of awakening curiosity in minds which 
had not yet been blunted by conventional education. Put 
more simply, it is contact with childhood which he feels he 
has always missed. 

Whenever Einstein speaks to a child one realizes what 
barriers exist in his relationship with adults. He is quick to 
reach an understanding with children and they have only 
to look at each other to become accomplices. It is not the re- 
emergence of the backward child or boy in Einstein. Chil- 
dren's minds have for him the same fascination as the authen- 
tic material of inanimate objects: he loves their naivete, 
still unaffected by conventional restraints, their impetuous 
questions, and their lack of embarrassment about the gaps 
they reveal in their knowledge. Above all Einstein shares 
their laughter and that mysterious sense of humor that makes 
grownups exclaim: "What on earth are they laughing about?" 
(The humorous verses Einstein composed for my daughter 
when she was small were never beyond her comprehension, 
And so Einstein goes on regretting never having been a 
schoolteacher. He thinks of children as lost in a universe 
of physical phenomena. He knows that he can make the great 
laws of nature accessible to them. He loves an explanation to 

36 



be both exact and clear. He once interrupted a grandiloquent 
statement on a scientific discovery by a visitor with: "If it is 
something that one can understand, one can also explain it 
clearly/ 7 It annoys him that the automatic way in which 
physics is so often taught to children is responsible for the 
number of adults excluded forever from awareness of that 
miraculous universe. I talked to him about my own ignorance 
of the most elementary facts, as I had a blind spot for even 
the basic principles of mathematics and physics. tfe What non- 
sense!" he said aggressively. "It is merely that you haven't 
been taught properly/' The telephone interrupted us. **You 
see,** I said, "I have been told how a telephone works, but I 
still don't grasp it" "Why, it's very simple," and he explained 
it so clearly that it became quite obvious and also wonderful. 
"You see what a good teacher of elementary physics I might 
have been," he said, laughing at my sense of achievement. 
Afterward he made a point of ^plaining discoveries which, 
without Trim, would still be enigmas to me. He has a tireless 
patience in answering the most ignorant questions. He takes 
joy in pointing out the action of the great laws of the universe* 
in prosaic, everyday happenings. 

Once I saw him stir the tea in his cup with concentrated 
attention, playing with his spoon as if wrapped in a dream. 
The whirlpool he had produced in the cup so completely 
absorbed him that he did not even hear his wife speaking to 
him. The rest of us lowered our voices, aware that his 
thoughts were far away. Suddenly he glanced at us with 
mischievous defiance. "Who can explain why a tea leaf in a 
cup that you stir remains on the top and in the middle?" 
Obviously, none of us knew, and even had we thought we 
did we would not have risked an explanation in his presence. 

- 37 



For a moment lie was silent, then said triumphantly: "You 
see, there were several tea leaves that fell to the bottom of 
the cup because they were heavier. When I began to stir, they 
gathered in the middle, owing to the centrifugal force. But 
die whirlpool that I produced is not uniform it is arrested 
at the edges by friction and its force of rotation there is 
weaker than in the middle. It is also weaker at the bottom of 
the cup and that is why the leaves are carried toward the 
middle and to the top, until the rotating movement is sta- 
bilized by the influence of the friction exercised from the 
depth." 

Einstein spoke simply, making us participants in his own 
discovery; and we felt we could have discovered it without 
him. He went on: "The same thing happens at the river 
bends. It explains the erosion that goes on at the shore and 
the formation of windings. Can't you see how simple it is?" 
It was, in fact, very simple everything is very simple when 
he explains it with ordinary words. But when he stops speak- 
ing the heavy door of the lost universe shuts behind him 
again. 

This taste for playing with problems like so many billiard 
balls is so strong that Heinrich Simon, the editor of the 
Frankfurter Zeitung, once let him, at his own request, write 
scientific riddles. The condition was that they should be 
published anonymously. Heinrich Simon was amazed. An 
American paper had offered Einstein a fabulous sum for an 
article and failed to get a statement of a few lines. The same 
man was willing to sit down and in his fine, clear writing 
formulate "posers" which he might have tried on the students 
in his class and now was giving away. The readers of the 
Frankfurter Zeitung never suspected the authorship of the 

38 



scientific problems over which they racked their brains. 
Heinrich Simon, who found it difficult to keep the secret, 
told me that readers did not always find them easy, but they 
were always highly instructive. "It is, after all, so simple/' 
said Einstein. That conviction is the key to his work, which 
he^affirmed in 1936 in a paper on "Physics and Reality": 
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it 
is comprehensible." 



39 



Chapter III 



"EVERY scientist ought to have a shoemakers job," Ein- 
stein once said. He found one of the sort in 1902, after a 
long and anxious search, thanks to a schoolfellow who was 
touched by his obvious poverty and who asked his father to 
intervene for Einstein with the director of the Federal Office 
of Patents in Bern. Here again he almost met with failure. 
The director was looking for someone capable of judging 
whether a request for a patent had any justification. 'What 
do you know about patents?'* he asked. "Nothing," replied 
Einstein. The interview might have ended there and then, 
but the frankness of this brief admission intrigued the man, 
who had been informed of the financial straits of the candi- 
date. A long conversation proved that the applicant did know 
enough to recognize the value of an invention. 

With this well-paid job, a small fortune in Einstein's eyes, 
his struggle for existence came to an end. He could now 
consider getting married. He had met at the university a 
Serbian student, Mileva Marie, who also intended to be- 

41 



come a teacher o physics. Perhaps the difference in their 
origins, the contrast in their characters, attracted him. His 
youth may have been drawn subconsciously toward the 
support of a woman slightly older than himself, or perhaps 
lie simply felt the need of an understanding response. Albert 
Einstein is not the sort of man who ever fully communicates 
his thoughts to other people: but he likes to use them as the 
sounding board of his own ideas. He needs appropriate an- 
swers in a conversation that is chiefly a monologue. 

His purely personal feelings have been consciously rele- 
gated more and more to the background of his existence. 
He spoke once of the "puritanical reserve" necessary to the 
scientist who, seeking truth, must remain removed from all 
disturbing emotions. With him this puritanical reserve is 
not the natural reserve of a man whose private life has been 
invaded by fame, nor merely a refractory instinct rejecting 
ill display of sentiment, but rather a conscious distribution of 
values according to their true worth. 

Summing up his life on the eve of his seventieth birthday, 
Einstein confined himself to an account of what had been for 
him a great spiritual adventure. He realized how inadequate 
his story was to dispel curiosity about him as a human being, 
and added mischievously: "Is this what is called an obituary? 
The surprised reader may well wonder. I am almost ready to 
reply: essentially, yes, it is for the essential in the destiny of 
a man of my sort is what and how he thinks and not what he 
does or what he goes through." The true story of Albert 
Einstein unfolds on two planes, that of his private life and 
that of his thought. What happens to him in his private life 
has always been on a lower level for him, only externally 
affecting his real destiny. His real world has been the world 
of thought and science. 



On this lower level Albert Einstein, when twenty-three 
years old, settled down in Bern, married, and founded a 
family. Two sons were born in succession. The younger 
looked like him he had his father's large, bulging, and 
sparkling eyes and shape of face. He inherited some part 
of his gifts and his taste for music, but he suffered from his 
mother's heredity, for she came of a mentally unbalanced 
family. 

Albert Einstein loved his sons as much as he could love 
anyone. They caused him the joys and torments all children 
cause their parents, but parental joy and torment were sub- 
ordinated to his work. On the lower worldly level also he 
was engrossed with the work in the Patent Office, judging 
the quality of applications and often editing imprecise and 
loosely worded formulations. His "job as a shoemaker" inter- 
ested him. His gifts as a jack-of-all-trades revealed them- 
selves, and he even invented an apparatus for measuring 
short electric voltages. 

But his thoughts were elsewhere. To understand what 
happened in the years following his new-found security, one 
must consider not only the creative miracle of genius but 
also the curious capacity he had for absenting himself from 
his immediate worldly surroundings. A separation seemed to 
take place between his mind and his body not unlike the 
ecstasy of a saint. The word "transfiguration" acquired an 
almost literal sense. But Einstein's "absences" were, in their 
external aspect, as alien as possible to ecstatic conditions; 
they were so realistic and commonplace that a superficial 
observer might never have noticed them. 

Albert Einstein would be there, his senses radiantly alive to 
the simple and sensual pleasures of life. You might be sitting 

43 - 



alone with him, or with two or three others, or the room 
might even be full of people. He had just finished a sentence. 
You would think he was following the conversation intently. 
Suddenly he would fall silent and stop listening to you. 
He would rise to his feet without a word, or remain sitting 
motionless. The effect would be the same. He would be 
unreachable. You could start talking noisily, or lapse into an 
even more embarrassing silence, with everybody staring at 
him, but he would neither see nor hear. This had nothing 
in common with the absent-mindedness of a man wrapped 
up in his own thoughts, who continues to circulate in a world 
of reality, causing absurd misunderstandings. With Einstein, 
the eclipse was and is total. Nothing, as far as one could see, 
changed in his expression. The shadow of a smile might still 
linger around his lips, he might still frown if some pain- 
ful matter had been the subject of discussion, but the 
thoughts of the moment before had vanished. The eyelids 
might droop, heavy, slightly purple in color, or the eyes be 
wide open, but they would be dark and lusterless as the 
eyes of a blind man. He might appear lost to us for a long 
time, and then return to u*s as if he had never realized his 
absence; he might remain without movement for a time that 
to us appeared an eternity, or return so rapidly that we 
thought we had been dreaming. His returns were as abrupt 
as his departures. But one never quite lost the feeling that 
his presence among us was only a temporary loan. 

At the Federal Patent Office during the three years that 
he conscientously performed his duties there, the same thing 
must often have happened. As soon as he got back his inter- 
est in scientific research, and recovered from the saturation 
of knowledge he needed for his examination, he attacked 

44 - 



the problem of light rays which had haunted him ever since 
he was sixteen. He spoke once of the "desperate efforts" 
pursued by him over many years to find a solution. His fu- 
ture collaborator, Professor Infeld, pointed out that these 
characteristic efforts illustrated first and foremost what he 
called Einstein's capacity for wonder. Perhaps that capacity 
which appears not only in the field of pure speculation is 
one of his chief characteristics: he faces every phenomenon 
as though it were quite new, as though it had not yet found 
its stable place in the universe, and asks Why? as though 
nothing had ever before been said on the subject He accepts 
no solution on trust Infeld points out another ability of Ein- 
stein's: to ponder for years over the same problem "until 
darkness is transformed into the light of understanding," and 
his gift of finding formulae for simple, imaginary experi- 
ments, "experiments that could never be performed in prac- 
tice, but which, when properly analyzed, strangely clarify 
our understanding of the world around us/* 

During this time of extraordinary creative richness Ein- 
stein attended to many other problems that came his way, 
edited papers on various subjects, and treated them all as 
of equal importance. The theory that scientists the world 
over agreed had caused a break with the experience of many 
centuries, and the creation of a new universe, first saw the 
light in a specialized German publication, the Year Book 
of Physics, a bulky volume filled with the most diverse 
contributions. Einstein published one article in it each year 
after 1901, when he completed his studies. The 1905 volume 
contained five contributions from Trim. They were all on 
different subjects. Perhaps the author did not wish to empha- 
size one subject more than another. But the one entitled 

45 - 



"A New Definition of Molecular Dimensions" was to give 
Tiim his chance at a university career. Another dealt with the 
quantum law of the emission and absorption of light and 
explained the phenomenon known in physics as "photo- 
electrical effect." The principle formulated by Einstein has 
influenced research in the physics of the quantum and spec- 
troscopy everywhere. His formulation of this law gave birth 
to television and other applications of the photoelectric cell. 
This was the contribution that won for him the Nobel Prize. 
A third article took as its starting point the experiment made 
by the botanist Robert Brown on the movement of minute 
particles suspended in liquid. The fourth paper was the 
longest of all. Its title in no way augured the revolution that 
it was to create: "On the Electrodynamics of Bodies in Move- 
ment/* But men with a knowledge of scientific publications 
note a purely superficial difference: this particular article 
contains no references, quotes no authority, and has few 
footnotes and those few serve only to explain the text. Even- 
tually, the experts were unanimous in declaring that what 
might have been but an outline of the theory of relativity 
was in fact a complete paper on the subject. Einstein himself 
must have been conscious of the importance of the solution 
he had arrived at. It was learned much later that he had a 
total collapse after it, exhausted by his superhuman effort. 
He was ill for a fortnight. The shock was very violent. 

Einstein never forgot the moment when the ultimate light 
was revealed to him. He was conscious of living through a 
supreme experience. He knew no greater human emotion: no 
violent passion or deep distress could compare in intensity 
with the transformation of the universe which had taken 
place before his eyes. In an essay written in January 1940 on 

46 - 



the foundation of theoretical physics, after speaking of the 
new concepts of fields discovered by Faraday, Einstein 
wrote: "The precise enunciation of the laws of these fields in 
space-time was the work of Maxwell. Can we visualize what 
he must have gone through when the differential equations 
that he had formulated proved that the electromagnetic 
fields are propagated in the shape of polarized waves and 
with the speed of light? . . . To few people in this world has 
it been given to witness such an experiment/* he added with 
one of his rare glimpses of emotiqn, reminded no doubt of 
his own happiness. 

Perhaps it was struggle required to reach his final convic- 
tions, perhaps it was the very intensity of his creative pow- 
ers, but he seemed (was it from birth or from that moment?) 
unconscious of everything life could offer him and impervious 
to emotion. In his affections as well as in his thoughts, he 
seemed to be only lending a presence which he might with- 
draw at any time. 

Spurred on by this supreme effort, Albert Einstein not only 
reconsidered theories of physics and questioned mechanical 
laws that had seemed safe against attack, but in his outline of 
the theory of relativity, as well as in a short article the fifth 
which appeared in the Year Book of Physics under the title 
"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content?" 
he gave warning of a power that was to shake the world. 
For the first time the formula rendering the use of atomic 
energy theoretically possible appeared in print, and the pos- 
sibility of annihilating humanity became a subject of specula- 
tion. The old concept of our universe had been upset by one 
man. Writing about the consideration of all values that be- 
gan to take place, Bafchelard raised the question: "Is so little 

47 



required to shake a spatial universe? Can a single experiment 
of the twentieth century annihilate (a follower of Sartre 
would plunge into nothingness) more than two or three cen- 
turies of rational thought? Yes, a single decimal sufficed." 

The date 1905 in the science books is often given as the 
decisive date in the new physics. One cannot, however, "date" 
great matters so clearly. Though the formula of the theory 
had appeared in print, and was safely stowed in the Year 
Book of Physics, there was no immediate revolution as the 
result of these new, still unassimilated ideas. Once again, as 
at the beginning of his career, Einstein's work was met with 
curious indifference. Nothing happened, absolutely nothing. 
Those who were later on to grasp the immense importance of 
these theories seem not to have noticed the article in which 
he developed them for the first time. His future collaborator, 
Professor Infeld, describes the years of silence that followed 
the publication of the first paper on relativity. Here and there 
an isolated scientist bent over the article and had some glim- 
mering of the changing universe. But with whom could he 
share the deep impression it produced? Where were the 
scientists qualified to discuss this genius, this stranger with 
no university credits, no university chair, no claim to justify 
such audacity of thought? 

A long way from Zurich, in the University of Cracow, a 
Polish professor, Witkowski, exclaimed on reading the arti- 
cle: "A new Copernicus has been born." He roused enthusi- 
asm in one of his pupils who later became a remarkable 
physicist. This young professor, Loria by name, spoke of 
Einstein's article to other colleagues, repeating the words 
of his teacher: "A new Copernicus has been born." Einstein? 
the name meant nothing to his colleagues. The professor 



talked with such f ervor to the German physicist Max Born 
that they went to the library to look for the 1905 Year Book 
of Physics, and Max Born wrote: "One of the most remarka- 
ble volumes in all scientific literature is Volume 17, Series 4, 
of the Year Book of Physics, 1905." Max Born himself became 
one of the first contributors to research in this field of rela- 
tivity. "But it was not before 1908 or 1909 that the attention 
of a great number of scientists was drawn towards Einstein's 
results,** wrote Infeld. Three or four years more went by. Is 
Einstein's later spectacular success to be explained by some 
mysterious law governing f ame, working now to compensate 
for all the early indifference? Fully conscious of his personal 
contribution, did Einstein expect immediate response, and 
was he eaten up with bitterness, with impatience? If so, he 
never expressed it. Little things he said such as: "The scien- 
tific mills are the slowest to grind their corn," may easily have 
referred to someone else. When he talks of the beginning of 
his career, he speaks of it as of something happening to an- 
other man. There was certainly no sense of frustration in 
him, and the patience he had then to exercise perhaps helped 
to render hrm immune to his later glory. 

Though the importance of his work was not at once 
recognized, its scope was noticed sufficiently to produce the 
impression that his modest position was somehow inade- 
quate. But one could not, after all, offer a Chair to a civil 
servant of the Federal Patent Office! In all the Germanic 
countries the line of demarcation between the secondary 
school and the university is strictly defined. A future univer- 
sity professor must justify himself by some work of distinc- 
tion to reach the first stage, the grade of lecturer. One of the 
articles published in the Year Book of Physicsnot the one 

49 



on the theory of relativity was considered sufficient to 
"qualify" Einstein. But since a lectureship does not bring 
with it any remuneration other than the scanty contributions 
of the students, Einstein could not think of abandoning his 
"livelihood." A compromise was finally found: while he was 
waiting for a professorship at Zurich to come through, the 
University of Bern let him keep the patent job and combine 
it with addresses to students as a university lecturer. 

One of his colleagues reports that Einstein, pursuing his 
own work in his mind, showed little interest in university 
matters and did not take enough trouble in preparing his 
lectures. The physicist who had proposed him for the Chair 
in Zurich, himself a professor there, came to Bern to get a 
report on his protege. Disappointed, he told Einstein that the 
lectures he addressed to his students would not be appro- 
priate for the position he had planned for him. "I do not 
especially wish to transfer to Zurich/* said Einstein quickly, 
like a man who wants above all to be left in peace. Still, he 
knew that he could not keep on working in Bern forever. He 
had to think of his career and it was inconceivable to refuse 
a Chair. There was, however, a rival on his path who was 
already established in the University of Zurich and who had 
been a former colleague in the Polytechnic. Friedrich Adler's 
father, Victor Adler, was leader of the Austrian Social Demo- 
crat Party; he was well known and had a large following 
abroad. Socialist circles in Zurich were very much on his son's 
side. A famous name might easily have eclipsed a stranger. 
Once more Einstein's career was in jeopardy. But integrity 
was a god to Friedrich Adler. It was he who intervened with 
the university authorities and stood aside. One of Einstein's 
biographers, Professor Frank, describes Adler s impatient 

50 * 



tone in promoting his rival: "If we can win a man like Ein- 
stein for our university, it would be ridiculous to nominate 
me; my faculties as a man of research in the field of physics 
are not in the same class as Einstein's.*' He insisted that politi- 
cal sympathies should not be allowed to interfere with the 
nomination. 

Einstein's university career began with this disinterested 
pleading by a man whose political convictions were well 
known. He was later to give spectacular proof of them in his 
own hour of fame. For one day, at a particularly critical 
moment in the First World War, Friedrich Adler walked 
into a Vienna restaurant and shot the Prime Minister, Count 
Stiirgkh, because he held hrm responsible for the disastrous 
and long-drawn-out war. 

Among the strange twists of fate that link the career of 
Einstein with great international events is the fact that 
Friedrich Adler, in prison on the eve of his death sentence, 
was correcting a paper of his own, refuting the theory of 
relativity. This theory, however, was by now so well estab- 
lished in the scientific world that it was on the strength of the 
arguments he expressed against it that an attempt was made 
to save Adler's life on the grounds that he was out of his mind 
at the moment of the murder. 

From 1909, the year of Einstein's appointment as professor 
extraordinary at Zurich (he was not yet holder of a Chair), 
though his remuneration was no higher than it had been as 
an official in Bern, his obligations increased. The family 
budget was balanced only by taking in students as lodgers. 

The appreciation of the scientific world came to Einstein 
gradually and this fact, curiously enough, permitted Trim to 
advance rapidly in his university career. Only a year had 

51 - 



passed and he was just over thirty when he was granted a 
Chair. In 1910 he was called to the German University at 
Prague. This nomination was merely an incident in his ca- 
reer, but it brought hi to two important turning points in 
his personal life. The regulations concerning government 
employment in Austria forced him to declare his religion. 
He had had no ties with the Jewish community since he left 
Munich, and no more links with Jewish tradition. His wife 
was Greek Orthodox. But he had not lost his youthful in- 
transigence. In university circles a more or less disguised 
anti-Semitism existed, particularly in Austria though the 
Austrian who was later to preach racial discrimination had 
not yet made his appearance. At that time it was sufficient 
to state one's religion on paper, in this way severing all con- 
nection with Jewry, to overcome many obstacles. Einstein's 
friends insisted that he should make what could be called a 
concession to prejudice. They quoted to him many "conver- 
sions'* for the sake of a career, but it was precisely these op- 
portunist arguments and these laws enforced by the Emperor 
Francis Joseph that brought Einstein to the reaffirmation of 
one of the principles of his life. The young professor filled in 
his questionnaire in his clear and regular handwriting: "Re- 
ligion Israelite." The decision was forced on him from out- 
side. It became more and more deeply rooted in him. 

A further change took place in his private life. The move, 
with all that it involved in the way of adaptation to the new 
milieu, to changed conditions in everyday life, served to 
accentuate the friction that existed between him and his wife. 
The special political circumstances that reigned in Prague 
must have weighed hard on Mileva Einstein, who was par- 
ticularly sensitive to the Skv problem. The Czech masses 

52 



were restless and angry at unfair discrimination against them. 
The dual monarchy maintained the fiction of equal civil 
rights. But the German-speaking Austrians considered them- 
selves the elite in a city which, had been the first in Central 
Europe to found a university; they treated the Slav elements 
with a contempt that was fed on old jokes from imperial 
Vienna. For them Czech was an inferior language used for 
addressing servants. 

In university life burning problems are reflected in small 
vexations and deep susceptibilities, and Albert Einstein did 
not "play the game"; he seemed not to notice that he was 
expected to identify himself with his surroundings. He re- 
mained aloof, unable to share petty resentments and vanities. 
His colleagues* narrow view of the world had little attraction 
for him. Now and then it aroused his sense of humor, but 
his amusement found little echo either at home or among his 
colleagues. In university circles he was like a visitor with 
strange manners. His successor in Prague, Professor Frank, 
was received on his arrival by the dean with: "In your spe- 
cialty, we ask only for one thing: to be a more or less normal 
man." 

The new professor was surprised. "Is that so rare a quality 
among physicists?" 

**You are not going to make me believe that your predeces- 
sor was a normal man?" replied the dean. 

Einstein stayed only two years in Prague. He did not know 
how people felt about him. He was absorbed in his work, 
isolated as though on a desert island, and hardly noticed 
other people. He was documenting and widening the theory 
of relativity as he had expounded it in 1905 and it was later, 
because of its restricted nature, characterized as "specific." *I 

53 - 



only became fully conscious of the fact/' lie said, "that the 
specific theory of relativity was only a first step towards a 
necessary evolution when I tried to integrate gravitation into 
the framework of that theory /* In 1912 six articles which he 
published in the Year Book of Physics were devoted for the 
most part to the problem of gravitation. The integration he 
attempted proved difficult. "The path was more arduous than 
had been expected," he wrote later, "because it was in con- 
tradiction to Euclid's Geometry/* 

At one time Einstein tried to describe the processes of 
scientific work and in doing so he exposed the workshop of 
his mind. Starting with primary concepts directly linked to 
sense experiences and with theorems which are interdepend- 
ent, the scientist tries to discover the logical unity in the 
image of the universe. He goes beyond what Einstein calls 
the ^secondary layer* to arrive at a system of the greatest 
conceivable unity. He considered it an error to designate 
these superimposed layers of thought as "degrees of abstrac- 
tion/* "I do not consider it right to conceal the logical inde- 
pendence of a fundamental concept from the sense experi- 
ment.** And he adds, in that picturesque language which he 
frequently uses: "The connection is not comparable to that of 
soup to beef, but more to that of the cloakroom ticket to the 
overcoat/* 

In his attempt to throw light on how scientific thought 
functions, Einstein emphasizes that "the fundamental con- 
cepts and theorems and the relations between them should 
be as narrow as possible but freely selected/* But the free- 
dom given to the scientist in his choice of axioms is different 
from that of any other form of creative effort. "It is not like 
the freedom of a novelist, but rather like that of a man try- 

- 54 



ing to solve a cleverly designed crossword puzzle. He may 
suggest any word as a solution, but there is only one word 
that can really solve the puzzle in all its parts.'* Einstein at 
that time was only halfway on the path to his unique solution 
of the mystery. Following this path with characteristic 
tenacity, he challenged almost casually those whom he had 
not yet convinced, and the challenge had consequences 
whose spectacular repercussions even he could not foresee. 

In examining the influences of gravitation on light, he de- 
clared, making another breach in Newtonian physics, that a 
light ray undergoes a deviation in proportion to the gravita- 
tion, so that it acquires the shape of a parabola. He wrote 
this from his desk perhaps he looked up at an exceptionally 
bright night sky as he did so, perhaps his eyes remained 
fixed on his paper, but it wouldn't have mattered: there was 
a picture of the star-studded sky in his mind's eye. By 
thought alone, and by application of the logic that leads to 
the unity of the world, he established the laws that govern 
this inaccessible world. In the paper he went on to prepare 
for the Year Book of Physics., he stressed that this deviation 
of light rays of stationary stars must be visible during an 
eclipse of the sun and that it would therefore be possible to 
verify his theory by experiment. He concluded his article: 
"It would be urgently desirable for astronomers to become 
interested in this question, even if the considerations given 
here appear insufficiently founded or even adventurous.'* 

Thus the suggestion was launched. A test of the immense 
design Einstein had sketched and now was filling in was 
called for and said to be in the realm of the possible. In that 
world of thought where nothing is lost, the idea went on its 
way. 

55 



From this point on, Einstein was no longer a solitary 
searcher, a mere man of promise, with brilliant gifts and bold 
ideas which frightened his conservative colleagues. In 1910 
Professor Planck, originator of the quantum theory, most 
eminent among the theoreticians of physics in Germany, was 
asked to give an opinion on Einstein's scientific contribution, 
and declared: If Einstein's theory is proven to be correct, 
as I expect it will be, he will be considered as the Copernicus 
of the twentieth century/* This was a happy comparison it 
had already been made once before. But there was still an 
"if in Planck's statement. In the meantime Einstein's contri- 
bution to science continued, quite apart from his revolution- 
ary theory. Max Born wrote later: "In my opinion, he would 
have been one of the greatest theoreticians of physics even 
if he had never written a line on relativity." 

The Zurich Polytechnic realized belatedly its mistake in 
not clinging to the former student who was one day to be its 
chief pride. It now offered a Chair to the candidate who had 
been rejected so coldly only a few years before. And in 1912 
Einstein returned to lecture to the selfsame benches where 
once he had sat and listened. He returned to the town, whose 
streets he had once tramped in hunger, as a man who had 
"arrived," no longer the professor extraordinary who could 
not balance his family budget without the humiliation of 
lodgers in his own home. At first, back in the familiar atmos- 
phere in which he had first met his wife, their relations may 
have improved. But their differences were too deep-rooted 
for the breach to be altogether healed. And their stay in 
Zurich was not long enough to bring together two people 
who were by now virtually estranged. 

The year after his nomination to Zurich, Albert Einstein 

- 56 - 



received the most flattering invitation that could have been 
given to a man of thirty-four. Germany's two most eminent 
physicists, Planck and Nernst, proposed him as a member of 
the scientific institute founded by the Emperor, the Kaiser 
Wilhelm Institute. The two scientists went to Zurich to per- 
suade Einstein of the enormous advantages offered to him. 
He would have a Chair at the university, without the obliga- 
tion of regular lectures, and apart from this he would have 
more time to devote to his scientific work, with a high salary 
and membership in the Prussian Academy of Science the 
equivalent of a marshal's baton offered to a young lieutenant. 
The proposal was enough to dazzle even a man as insensitive 
to material advantages and honors as Einstein. The Berlin of 
1913 vibrated with an intense intellectual life and was the 
cradle of great spiritual movements as well as of new scien- 
tific ideas. This city to which Einstein was summoned was a 
place of unlimited possibilities, thanks to the extraordinary 
prosperity of its economic system. Berlin prided itself on 
being in the forefront of civilization, appreciating everything 
that was new, whether laborious research, audacious thought, 
or artistic inspiration. The University of Berlin counted 
among its professors the greatest names in almost every 
sphere. If neither honors nor position could impress Einstein, 
he had the feeling of the humble for the influence exercised 
by personality and a deep respect for spiritual values and 
scientific achievement. 

But, flattered as he must have been, nevertheless Einstein 
was cautious. The professor of a university was a govern- 
ment servant. As a civil servant he acquired with his post 
German nationality. Einstein had not lost the convictions of 
his youth which had once made him break with the country 

57 



of his birth. His Swiss nationality had given him the feeling 
of being international rather than national, "a citizen of the 
world." The obstinacy with which he defended his point of 
view was so instinctive that it might have sprung from some 
presentiment of the future. 

The problem he had raised was a hard one for the German 
scientists to swallow, but they were eager to benefit from his 
growing fame. Besides, there was a precedent. The faculty 
of letters had among its prominent personalities a French- 
man, Professor Haguenin, who before accepting his nomina- 
tion had stipulated that he wished to keep his nationality. 
Einstein and Haguenin were the only ones in this large uni- 
versity body to remain foreigners while becoming Prussian 
civil servants. 

In the autumn of 1913 Einstein left Zurich and went to 
Berlin alone. His separation from his wife, at first temporary, 
soon became final. He knew that it was inevitable when he 
went and was deeply distressed when he left his sons: it was 
probably the only time in his life when anyone saw him cry. 



58 



Chapter IV 



AT FIRST it seemed no more than the ordinary newspaper 
headline to those who were engrossed in their own work 
and did not follow political events very closely: the murder 
of the Archduke occurred in the middle of a peaceful sum- 
mer, -whose brilliant sunshine made man-made disasters seem 
curiously unreal. A few more weeks of waiting, with the 
weather still wonderful, raised everyone's hopes. 

The declaration of war hit Berlin as if the sky had fallen. 
War was still an unknown factor, for no one had seen it at 
close quarters. But the instinct of the masses revolted per- 
haps not so much against this still unknown war as against 
the end of peace and against a break in the solidarity of the 
working classes everywhere. 

On the afternoon of August 1, 1914, when it still seemed 
possible that the disaster could be averted, the crowd 
marched through the streets of Berlin crying, "Down with 
the war!" The workmen who walked in close ranks, and the 
public orators who climbed upon improvised platforms, an- 

59 



grily addressing the crowd, seemed like a tidal wave which 
might really sweep away the arrogant military caste with 
their sham Lohengrin at their head. Next day the crowd, 
even denser and more excited, stampeded in the square in 
front of the palace. The Kaiser appeared. The crowd was 
delirious with enthusiasm. This war which Wilhelm II had 
declared suddenly appeared to them as a long-awaited re- 
lease, a holy war: but had they any idea what it was to be 
a release from? These thousands of voices rising from the 
square sounded like a single angry outcry, an ancient ele- 
mental force that had existed long before these men, women, 
and children who acclaimed the Emperor as their military 
idol were born. There were no more protests, no more looks 
of anguish or caution on the radiant faces to whom war had 
been promised. The brothers and sisters of the same men 
who only yesterday had cried, '"Down with the war," perhaps 
even those men themselves, now created out of the Schloss- 
platz a volcano of popular feeling, a tumult of warlike ardor. 
Einstein, like all those who lived through these hours in 
Berlin and saw this delirium, was never to forget how a 
crowd could be completely won over to a destructive im- 
pulse. "My pacifism is instinctive/' he said later. He was 
always afraid of the chaos created in man by incitement to 
war, by the call to hatred, and by the deformation of truth. 
He saw the intellectual elite, as well as the crowd deluded 
into believing in a conspiracy of the powers of evil directed 
against a peaceful Germany, and that the war was a neces- 
sary struggle if the threatened homes, moral values, and 
driving power of Germany were to survive. Einstein recog- 
nized in this explosion of enthusiasm and wrath, of self- 
confidence and contempt for all that is different or foreign, 

60 



the reaction that arises from fear of solitude, from need of 
solidarity, from a love of sacrifice and self-effacement so 
strong that it destroys all critical sense and having recog- 
nized it as such, he was never able to forget it. He remained 
as impervious to the intoxication of the crowd as he did to 
the patriotic anger that blinded the German elite. "This 
blindness, incomprehensible to me, has struck like an epi- 
demic many who have always seemed to think and feel 
clearly up till now,** he wrote to Romain Holland. 

His status as a neutral protected him from the necessity 
of making a .stand. On the strength of it he was able to refuse 
to sign the manifesto of the ninety-three intellectuals, the 
capitulation of German spiritual independence. But he did 
not retreat altogether into the protective shelter of neutrality. 
In the same month of October when this manifesto ap- 
peared, he signed a countermanifesto, written by that in- 
domitable German pacifist Professor G. Nicolai, who later 
achieved fame with his spectacular escape by airplane from 
wartime Germany. This Appeal to Europeans had, if I am 
not mistaken, only three signatures: the third one was that 
of Wilhelm Foerster, president of the International Office of 
Weights and Measures, father of another great German paci- 
fist, F. W. Foerster. There were not many indeed who dared 
to dissent from the concert of hatred. "Will future centu- 
ries,** Einstein wrote to Romain Rolland, "really be justified 
in glorifying our Europe in which three centuries of intense 
cultural work have only brought about the transition from 
religious mania to nationalist mania?'* His sense of humor 
came to the rescue. In this letter, dated March 1915, he 
added: "Even the scientists of various countries behave as 

61 



though eight months ago they had had their brains ampu- 
tated." 

His reputation as an eccentric saved him from the most 
savage attacks of his indignant colleagues. Nevertheless in 
" their eyes he was a moral leper. He was to remember that 
when he came for the first time to Paris. He had been in- 
vited by Madame Curie and when he sat down in the salon 
he glanced at the row of chairs beside him which no one 
dared to occupy and smiled across at young Frederic Joliot. 
"Come and sit next to me, for I feel exactly as if I were at a 
meeting of the Prussian Academy where two chairs are 
always left empty beside mine,* he explained, laughing. 

As a reaction against the general neurosis, the Union of 
the New Fatherland was founded in Berlin at the beginning 
of the war, to "fight chauvinism and prepare public opinion 
for a peace that would respect the honor of all the belliger- 
ent parties." They were merely a handful of men and women 
who had not allowed to quote Einstein's words their brains 
to be amputated. They felt very isolated amid the angry 
outcries which followed. It was through the papers and 
through the Bund, whose activities he highly approved, that 
Einstein learned of the position taken up by Romain Holland. 
He wrote to him at once to express his admiration for his 
courage and to put at his disposal **my feeble forces in case 
you might want to use me as an instrument, either owing to 
my position or my relations with the foreign and German 
members of the Academy of Science/* In fact he knew that 
his influence was limited. When Romain Rolland asked him 
one day if he was able to express his ideas to his German 
friends, if he was able to discuss politics with them, he shook 
his head. Nothing could break through the barriers of mis- 



understanding. All Einstein could do was shower questions 
upon them to shake them from their complacency, and "they 
don't like that very much, 9 * he added with a laugh. The 
scientists, mathematicians, and the physicists were the most 
accessible of the Germans, while the humanists of the uni- 
versity proved to be the most affected by the frenzy of na- 
tionalism. At the root of this mania for war Einstein found 
once again his ceaseless enemy, the system of education, 
which, by being blindly submissive to the state, exalted 
national pride and reduced a nation that boasted of itself as 
the nation of "thinkers and poets" to a nation of slaves. This 
submission was not so much a national characteristic as a 
result of that discipline of thought that had dominated his 
own frustrated youth. 

By the time the war began Einstein had no illusions left 
as to its outcome. Although he took part in all the scattered 
protests and clandestine activities like those of the Bund 
Neues Vaterland, which was suppressed in 1915, he knew 
them to be wholly inadequate. But his doubts about the ef- 
fectiveness of any action had never stopped him. It was this 
that showed the fundamental difference between the state 
of mind of the average German and the strength of the feel- 
ings which moved Einstein himself. He was aware of the 
difference in these grave moments, when even men of good 
will refused to take responsibilities for fear of finding them- 
selves isolated. Einstein recognized that Germany herself 
was incapable of revolt or of any sort of daring initiative 
that would lead to a spiritual rebirth. Respect for power was 
too deeply rooted in the German mind; it corresponded too 
well to their desire to dominate others. Talking once to 
Romain Rolland, Einstein used the word affame to describe 



the Germans. He was aware that this desire for power, this 
thirst for conquest and respect for success, was a compensa- 
tion for a feeling very close to an inferiority complex. Bru- 
tality, even at its lowest, concealed something like aT desire 
to be not only respected but loved, in the words of the 
ironical ditty well known in Germany: "If you don't want 
to be my brother, 111 bash your skull in." The Germany 
which violated Belgian neutrality, the Germany of the crimes 
of Louvain and the attack on tie Lusitania, was still naive 
enough to be surprised at the hatred these crimes aroused 
in the civilized world. When the Council of the Berlin Uni- 
versity met and the professors got together in a beer cellar 
after the session, their conversations invariably began with 
one question: "Why does the whole world hate us?" (Ein- 
stein told this to Remain Holland with a laugh, but in his 
laughter there was perplexity at the German capacity for 
self-deception. ) 

Einstein understood on the one hand that it was their lack 
of self-criticism that gave rise to this spirit of submission 
among Germans and to jheir resentment of isolation: on the 
other hand he was conscious of their great capacity for or- 
ganization, their gift for adaptation, and their ingeniousness. 
He knew from the first year of the war that nothing but total 
defeat would put an end to German militarism and to the 
oppressive social framework. Himself a native of peaceful 
Swabia, he saw in Prussia the incarnation of all the German 
virtues but also all the German vices. The kingdoms and 
principalities of the south had still preserved a certain spirit 
of tolerance and humanity. When at a meeting of all German 
universities the question was put whether all links with the 
other universities of the world should be severed, the Univer- 

64 




EINSTEIN AS A STUDENT-AARAU, SWITZERLAND, 1896 
... the young man had to return to the school desk like any dunce." 




EINSTEIN IN 1905 

**A new Copernicus has been born/ 3 



sity of Berlin alone approved the motion against the opposi- 
tion of all the universities of southern Germany. Einstein 
knew, nevertheless, that differences of opinion and resent- 
ments, like the hatred between Bavaria and Prussia, were 
forgotten in time of danger and that the common ordeal of 
the war reinforced the unity of the empire, so that it would 
be difficult to return to the federal system. Nevertheless he 
still cherished a dream, knowing it was no more than this, 
of a disunited Germany, where the southern provinces would 
join with Austria. 

He spoke of this to Romain Holland when they met at 
Vevey in September 1915. He had come to Zurich with a 
Swiss friend on purpose to see the man who in the eyes of 
the pacifists of the world was the incarnation of a free con- 
science. They met on the veranda of the hotel where Rolland 
was living, on a soft autumn afternoon, "among swarms of 
bees, who came to rob the flowers and the ivy." Einstein was 
thirty-six at that time, but his black curly hair was already 
streaked with gray. Rolland found him "very alive and gay; 
he cannot help giving an amusing twist to the most serious 
thoughts." He discovered the absolute independence and 
serenity of his mind: none of his previous visitors had pro- 
duced the same impression. He noted in his diary: "Einstein 
is incredibly detached in his judgments on his native coun- 
try. No other German has such detachment." But the meet- 
ing saddened Rolland. "All that he has told me points to the 
impossibility of concluding a lasting peace with Germany 
without defeating her first." Einstein told him, too, that 
"whatever the result of the war, the chief victim will be 
France." Rolland thought the severity with which Einstein 
judged the Germans was excessive; his criticism he thought 

- 65 



too sarcastic and his prophecies too gloomy. In the end the 
meeting left him perplexed: Einstein's personality somehow 
eluded him. "Another man would suffer if he felt himself so 
isolated in thought in this dreadful year. But not Einstein: 
he just laughs/* He was surprised that Einstein should have 
been able, under such conditions, to work on his theory 
about which the Swiss friend had whispered to him: "It is 
the greatest revolution in thought since Newton/' 

It would have been more difficult for Einstein to preserve 
the calm necessary for his work, and stand the increasing 
privations that the war effort imposed upon Germany, had he 
been wholly alone in the foreign Prussian capital. But on 
arriving in Berlin he found support, and soon after shelter, 
with one of his uncles and the latter's daughter. The meeting 
between Einstein and his cousin Elsa was the beginning of 
the only permanent personal relationship in his life: thence- 
forward their relationship dominated his private life. He 
had known her as a child, when she used to visit his younger 
sister, but having as a boy no interest in little girls, he had 
completely forgotten her existence. Now he met a woman 
who was already mature, who had been divorced after an 
unhappy marriage, and who was the doting mother of two 
wistful and frail little girls. She must have been very charm- 
ing; people who met her later in life disregarded the total 
lack of coquetry in her manner to admire her regular fea- 
tures and remarkably fair complexion. Her lively expression 
saved her from being merely pretty. She had bright blue, 
extremely myopic eyes, and a humorous mouth. Einstein, 
distrustful of all intrusions into his private life, must have 
been on the defensive against every stranger, but with Elsa 
it was as if he rediscovered something with which he had 

66 



been familiar all his life and his defenses disappeared. They 
had many memories in common, both their own and their 
elders'; they recalled old times, in a language spiced with 
dialect, inherited proverbs and sayings; they put forward 
mysterious interpretations of events long past: tiny incidents 
that were both tragic and grotesque. They would exchange 
understanding glances, like those of old friends, and smiles 
that were much older than their relationship as man and 
wife. They met on a common ground of friendship and self- 
confidence which remained with them always. The quiet 
care with which Elsa looked after her cousin was sometimes 
concealed by an air of vagueness: perhaps deliberately, for 
too great an appearance of efficiency might have repelled a 
man who was so indifferent to worldly things. Elsa protected 
him against the hostile world as she was to protect hfm later 
on against the assaults of admiration or curiosity. Their mar- 
riage, when it took place, seemed the most obvious thing in 
the world to both of them. She was not the sharer in his 
scientific work that he had once thought he had found in 
Mileva. Elsa's quick intelligence would have certainly let her 
glimpse the world in which her husband lived, but she ab- 
stained, deliberately, and Einstein has always been grateful 
to her for having left this line of demarcation between them. 
Whenever he was working particularly hard, Elsa saw that 
he had silence around him and made his everyday life as 
easy as possible, so that the transition from the intellectual 
effort should be smooth and unobtrusive. When he emerged 
from his study where he had been closeted for many hours 
with his assistant, followed by clouds of smoke and pulling at 
his pipe, with his eyes shining, Elsa would slowly bring him 
back to reality as though awakening a sleepwalker; she 

67 



would gradually bring to his attention the people around him 
and the food on his plate, which he was chopping with his 
knife like a blind man. One day, in a moment of relaxation, 
she asked him: "People talk a lot about your work at the 
moment Everybody keeps asking me for news. I appear so 
stupid when I have to say that I know nothing. Couldn't you 
just tell me a little about it? 9 * 

"Yes," said Einstein, "it must be irritating for you." He 
thought for a moment. He smiled; it was a tender smile. Elsa 
gazed at him with her vague, serene, shortsighted glance. 
"Well,* 7 he began with a visible effort. He stopped, then sud- 
denly his face lit up happily. "Well, if people ask you, you 
can tell them that you know all about it, but can't tell them 
as it is a great secret/' He was delighted to have discovered 
this solution. Horrified as he was by a groping approach to 
scientific facts and the commonplace transformation to 
which his ideas were subjected, he was deeply grateful to 
Elsa when she burst out laughing at his suggestion. 

Apart from the mutual confidence in which they reveled, 
and the similarity of their simple tastes, they had another 
trait in common: a very special and personal sense of pro- 
portion. One never knew how or against what background 
they would look at either men or things. One could only be 
certain that their way of looking at them would have little 
in common with anyone else's. Elsa had the greater merit in 
acquiring such independence of judgment: she lived on the 
same level as other human beings, while with Einstein it 
was as if he moved from one planet to another. 

Elsa had an acute gift of observation, which was softened 
by the natural tolerance of her nature. She would analyze 
a human being with her shortsighted eyes and she would 

. fift . 



discover at once the secret of ids personality. Very often she 
knew more about people she met for the first time than their 
closest friends would ever know; she was a merciless judge, 
but pity overcame her as soon as she pronounced her verdict. 

Above all she had a sense of humor that triumphed over 
all the great and small difficulties of life. An incident that 
might have caused anybody else to have a nervous break- 
down made her shriek with laughter, gay laughter that swept 
away all irritations like so many cobwebs. She made any 
daily tragedy the subject for a comedy which she would re- 
enact like a trained actress. In fact she had been on the stage 
and had given lessons in elocution to pay for her children's 
education. She could -mimic to perfection the important per- 
sonalities that later filled the house, as well as romantic 
vagabonds; she gave imitations of herself, usually in not too 
favorable a light, and imitated her husband in his battle 
with the petty side of life. Albert Einstein was the first to 
laugh at his wife's illustrations of incidents, in which his 
halo of celebrity was often ridiculed. 

Destiny, when it united Albert Einstein and Elsa at this 
moment of their lives, before the sudden blaze of his glory, 
must have foreseen the disaster that an ambitious woman 
might have made of his life. 

In the peace of his new home it was much easier for Ein- 
stein to devote himself more and more to the increasingly 
engrossing adventure of his work. He was nearing the goal 
he had pursued for ten long years. On November 28, 1915, 
at the height of the war, Einstein wrote to a physicist friend, 
Arnold Sommerfeld, who had written hn" several unan- 
swered letters: "This last month I have lived through the 
most exciting and the most exacting period of my life: and 



it would be true to say that it has also been the most fruitful. 
Writing letters has been out of the question. I realized that 
up till now my field equations of gravitation had been en- 
tirely devoid of foundation. When all my confidence in the 
old theory vanished, I saw clearly that a satisfactory solution 
could only be reached by linking it with the theory of the 
Riemann variations. The wonderful thing that happened 
then was that not only did the theory of Newton result from 
it, as a first approximation, but also the perihelian motion of 
Mercury (43" per century) as a second approximation. For 
the deviation of light by the sun, I obtained twice this fig- 
ure/* 

To Sommerfeld's slightly skeptical reaction, Einstein re- 
plied on a postcard dated February 8, 1916, with the brevity 
and assurance of a man who has acquired a final certainty: 
"You will be convinced of the general theory of relativity as 
soon as you have studied it. Therefore I will not utter a word 
in its defense/' 

Referring to Planck in a speech a little later, Einstein 
actually described his own state of mind at the time. He bor- 
rowed a sentence from Leibnitz to explain the love of 
research that stimulates every scientist, the "desire for a 
pre-established harmony/* It was, according to him, mistaken 
to attribute (as is generally done) Planck's indefatigable 
tenacity and patience to his unusual strength of will and 
rigorous discipline, for the "emotional condition that allows 
similar achievements to be accomplished is more like that of 
a deeply religious man or of a man in love; the daily effort is 
not dictated by either a purpose or a program, but by an 
immediate need." 

In 1916 there appeared in the Year Book of Physics, as 



well as in a separate publication, the work he had mentioned 
to Sommerfeld: "The Foundations of the Theory of General 
Relativity/* This, Einstein's main work, took up sixty-four 
pages. Rarely, perhaps never before in the history of human 
thought, has so small a publication had such a tremendous 
effect on the world. Einstein himself was aware that a great 
victory had been won and he was fully conscious of his own 
contribution. One day, much kter, his collaborator, Infeld, 
said to him: 

"I believe that the special theory of relativity would have 
been formulated with but little delay whether or not you 
had done it/" 

"Yes, that is true," said Einstein. He thought, indeed, that 
a scientist like Langevin, for instance, might have developed 
it; for according to Einstein, Langevin had clearly realized 
its essential features. However, he added immediately: "But 
this is not true of the general theory of relativity. I doubt 
whether it would have been known yet/* 

This awareness of his achievement and his feeling of a 
spiritual triumph had nothing to do with self-satisfaction. 
It was more like the joy of a believer in seeing a miracle 
accomplished in front of him, an almost humble joy. Einstein 
described later this faith that possessed him: "In a certain 
sense I hold it to be true that pure thought can grasp reality 
as the ancients dreamed it/* 

But the moment when this work of Einstein's first saw the 
light could not have been more ill chosen or more unpropi- 
tious for the diffusion of his ideas. The war in Germany was 
at its height and the atmosphere was tense. It was a year of 
crimes against humanity the horrors of gas warfare and 
the submarine war; it was the year that nearly destroyed a 



whole generation. Atrocities were rife in a country that did 
not yet realize that it was being deceived, and still believed 
in a near victory, where medals were coined in advance for 
the entry of German troops into Paris, and the sinister attack 
on the Lusitania was commemorated by a medal depicting 
a skeleton welcoming passengers in a ticket office. Through- 
out the whole of Germany resounded the war cry of hatred 
against "perfidious Albion/* the words of a peace-loving poet 
twisted by blind German anger. 

In this increasingly restrictive atmosphere Albert Einstein 
suffered both from the constraint of silence and from the 
complete isolation into which he was forced. Priding himself 
as he did on his independence of exterior circumstances, he 
was nonetheless more deeply affected than he would have 
liked to admit by the horrors of this seemingly endless war. 
"I know men in Germany/* he wrote to Remain Holland, 
"who, in their private lives, are guided by an almost com- 
plete altruism, but who have awaited with great impatience 
the declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare/* Morally 
shaken, he was physically even more vulnerable. The priva- 
tions suffered by the inhabitants of large cities were a severe 
strain on his health, but he refused to take the slightest ad- 
vantage of his position to secure extra privileges. Bread was 
inedible, rations were insufficient, lard, meat, and sugar were 
all non-existent, and bitter cabbages served as a base for 
everything. Despite Elsa's ingenuity there was never enough 
to eat and in the three years of war he lost sixty pounds. 
When he went to Switzerland to see his children in July 
1917 his host was terrified at how thin and tired he seemed. 

He went to rest in Arosa with his sons, and his friends 
began a campaign to keep hm\ in Switzerland and prevent 

- 72 



his return to Germany, where he would be running the risk 
of permanently ruining his health. Even a month's rest did 
not suffice to improve his condition noticeably. The least 
exertion was still difficult for him, and he wrote to Romain 
Holland, "Even the smallest effort takes its toll/' Rolland, 
moved by the accounts he heard from friends of Einstein's 
physical and moral condition, joined in the efforts being 
made to dissuade him from returning to Germany. "I know 
that you will not be careful of your health as you should, 
which is both a crime against science and a source of pain to 
your friends/' he wrote, and added, "It is hard for me to 
believe that you have lost that optimism which struck me 
so much in you. I still have a bright and cheerful memory 
of it." Einstein was very touched "by your friendly interest 
in a man you have only seen once," he wrote, with that naive 
surprise which he so frequently expressed when he realized 
that others were worried about him. 

He was still too weak to make the trip to Villeneuve, but 
he wrote to Rolland at length about conditions in Germany. 
"As a result of the military victories of 1870 and of those in 
the fields of commerce and industry, the country has arrived 
at a sort of religion of power. It dominates almost all of the 
intellectuals and has almost completely dispossessed the 
ideals of the times of Goethe and Schiller. I am firmly con- 
vinced that this aberration can only be driven back or re- 
pressed by the duress of facts/' He returned to this theme 
several times in his letter, as if he were trying to dissipate 
illusions which he knew to be tenacious. "Only facts can turn 
the deluded masses away from their false belief that we live 
for the state and that the proper goal of the state is power, 
at any price. As long as German statesmen go on hoping that 



a change in the present balance of power will occur sooner 
or later one cannot hope for any important changes in the 
situation/* 

Einstein was by no means alone in thinking that a German 
victory or even a semidef eat would be the end of all liberty 
of spirit in Germany. At the time of the great German of- 
fensive, the director of a liberal newspaper said to the writer 
Bernhard Kellermann, who was going to the front, "If it suc- 
ceeds there will be nothing left for us but to become ex- 
patriates.** 

Because of the state of his health Einstein had seen almost 
no one during his stay in Switzerland. But he had warned his 
friends in letters, as he had warned Romain Holland, and in 
these letters, which were circulated from hand to hand, the 
man who was returning to Germany, where any indiscretions 
could have grave consequences, in effect urged the Allies to 
carry the war to the end, to the complete surrender of Ger- 
many. 'Without this," he wrote, "we ourselves will never be 
able to rid ourselves of the yoke/' Only one human voice 
managed to penetrate the noise of war; and it was the voice 
of a scientist who spoke the language of the enemy. 

The English scientists listened and what they heard deeply 
disturbed them. They pored with passionate interest over 
the article Einstein published in the reports of the Prussian 
Academy of Science: "Cosmological Notes on the Theory of 
General Relativity.** 

"Modern cosmology was born in that year of 1917,** Ein- 
stein's collaborator, Professor Infeld, wrote later. And he 
added: "Though it would be difficult to exaggerate the im- 
portance of this paper, Einstein's original ideas as viewed 
from the perspective of the present day are antiquated, if not 

74 * 



wrong.* 7 Since Einstein had worked out his cosmology 
through the effort of pure thought, and had been able to 
materialize, as he said, the dreams of the ancients, the meth- 
ods of observation of the universe had been multiplied and 
had acquired a power that he himself did not suspect at the 
time. The human eye penetrated beyond the nebulae into 
this universe, which Einstein pictured as a finite universe, 
with curved space populated with matter, and not as an in- 
finite universe, a void around an island of matter. 

Certain phenomena observed by these powerful means, 
such as the tendency of the spectrum of the nebulae to dis- 
place itself toward the red the red shift of the nebulae, as 
it was calledseemed to other scientists, like Inf eld, a breach 
in Einstein's theory. It never ceased, however, to occupy the 
minds of astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians. A new 
spatial notion was born. Ideas about the structure of the 
universe, more or less modified, will never be what they were 
before him. 

The effect was immediate. Einstein's suggestion to the 
astronomers that they direct their attention to the theory of 
relativity was accepted. In March 1917 the official organ of 
the Royal Astronomical Society, the Astronomer Royal, an- 
nounced that on May 29, 1919, a total eclipse of the sun would 
take place and that therefore there would be particularly 
favorable conditions at that time for submitting Einstein's 
theory to a decisive experiment. 

The mind of one man had spanned the abyss of hatred and 
sorrow that existed between nation and nation: it was a span, 
however, invisible to those who fought and died in the vain 
hope that there would be no more wars. 



At that dark moment in the world conflict the words which 
Prince Louis de Broglie was later to utter acquired their 
fullest significance: "The theories of Einstein can be com- 
pared to burning flares, throwing a brief but powerful light 
on an immense and unknown region/' 



76 



Chapter V 



IT WAS like a great epic or adventure into the unknown an 
escape beyond the barriers of human misery which war had 
erected. Two great expeditions were organized in February 
1919. One was to Sobral, in the north of Brazil; the other to 
the island of Principe, in the Gulf of Guinea. But neither of 
these expeditions, organized at great expense, was aiming to 
explore hitherto unknown regions or study unusual ways of 
life. They were organized to surprise the sky at a moment 
when the total eclipse of the sun allows men to penetrate 
further into its mysteries. In the old days treasure hunters 
would sometimes set out with nothing to guide them but 
their faith in an old map, found by accident. These two mod- 
ern expeditions left because of their faith in one man, who 
had elaborated a bold theory, guided only by his scientific 
logic. Never before was tihere an adventure of such daring, 
so totally confined to the domains of pure thought. 

Sir Arthur Eddington, the great British astronomer, has 
described the expedition to Principe, which he insisted on 



joining himself. Nothing was left to the last minute. The 
expedition arrived a month before the eclipse. On the day 
itself dawn broke in a clouded, misty sky. When the eclipse 
became total, the dark disk of the moon, surrounded with 
its halo, appeared among the clouds as one often sees it at 
night when the stars are invisible. "There was nothing to do 
but carry out the arranged program and hope for the best." 
A strange, ghostly half-light covered the earth, accompanied 
by deep silence, broken only by whispered conversations, 
the click of the observers changing their plates, and the in- 
exorable ticking of the metronome squandering the precious 
seconds. Suddenly a flame shone out above the invisible sun 
and remained floating in space hundreds of millions of miles 
above the surface of the sun. The team at Principe had no 
time to take in this strange sight: they were too anxious 
about the success of the experiment. 

The sky clouded over more and more: it seemed deter- 
mined to thwart the efforts of man and baffle his curiosity. 
On the first photograph there was no sign of a star. About 
sixteen photographs were taken, however, with exposures 
varying from two to twenty seconds. Toward the end of the 
eclipse, the clouds vanished and the last photographs were 
clear. In many of them one or other of the essential stars was 
missing. But one plate eventually succeeded in capturing 
the light of five stars, and this was good enough to be used 
for an examination of the Einstein theory. 

Months passed by, devoted to the careful examination of 
the results obtained, and to a comparison of the photographs 
brought from Sobral with those taken at the Greenwich 
Observatory. After repeatedly verified calculations, the devi- 
ation of light of 1.64 seconds was established: the deviation 

78 



that Einstein, from his writing desk, had fixed at 1.75 sec- 
onds. 

In February 1952 a new expedition was organized by the 
University of Chicago to verify an akeady ancient experi- 
ment. The stars visible only during a total eclipse of the sun 
were photographed in Khartoum. The expedition had at its 
disposal every new apparatus; it was far better equipped 
than the English astronomers had been in 1919. Owing to 
this progress and the perfected methods of American re- 
search, die Khartoum experiment proved to be even more 
conclusive than that of Sobral and Principe. The deviation 
of light established came closer to the figure arrived at by 
Einstein 1.70 seconds. But the success of the earlier experi- 
ment had by now been generally recognized. 

It was at the beginning of November 1919, at a solemn 
joint meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronom- 
ical Society in London, that the results achieved were made 
public, amid considerable tension. A philosopher who was 
present compared it later to a Greek drama in which the 
chorus awaits the verdict of destiny. The president of the 
Royal Society opened the meeting by describing Einstein's 
theory as one of the greatest achievements in the history of 
human thought. "It is not the discovery of an outlying island, 
but of a whole continent of new scientific ideas. It is the 
greatest discovery in connection with gravitation that has 
been made since Newton first enunciated its principles." 

The hall in which the meeting took place was dominated 
by a large portrait of Newton. The shadows of a great man 
of the past and of the absent stranger loomed over the audi- 
ence. A stranger, under suspicion because of the very lan- 
guage in which he had enunciated his theory, had dared to 

79 



challenge one of the most glorious names in English history. 

Looking back on this hour of triumph which he was not 
there to share, Einstein wrote in his notes for his autobiog- 
raphy: "Forgive me, Newton: you had discovered the only 
path possible in your time, even to a man of the greatest 
ability and creative power. The concepts which you estab- 
lished still determine our efforts in the domain of physics, 
though we know now that if we aspire to a deeper under- 
standing of relations in general, they have to be replaced by 
others more distant from the sphere of immediate experi- 
ence.'* 

At the moment when the meeting of the physicists and 
astronomers took place, Einstein's conceptions still seemed 
completely inaccessible to the man in the street. The great 
physicist who presided at the meeting said himself: "I have 
to admit that until now no one has been able to state to me 
in simple words what Einstein's theory actually represents." 
But there was something in the event itself that impressed 
everyone with its elemental importance. 

The whole world seemed to be waiting with baited breath: 
everything conspired to capture the imagination of the 
crowd. Endless spectacular rumors were being circulated. 
Suddenly this theory which depended on the testimony of 
the sky and the disappearing sun acquired, as you might say, 
a market price. A prize of five thousand dollars was offered 
in America for a precis of the theory of relativity not exceed- 
ing 3000 words. The man in the street, the man who stum- 
bled over the word 'relativity/* which had not yet become of 
common usage, suddenly learned that it could bring fortune 
to the initiated: five dollars for three words. For some time 
this was all Einstein's work meant to the man in the street. 

80 



At the time a young Polish student was just arriving in 
Berlin to finish his studies. He had no idea that he would one 
day be chosen as one of Einstein's collaborators. All he knew 
was that in his own country the value of money was rapidly 
depreciating, melting away from day to day. The sum fixed 
for the prize, converted into marks, reached astronomical 
figures. Leopold Infeld described later how he set to work 
with a friend, and as they sat in his dingy student's room 
polishing and pruning the text, counting the words, they 
dreamed of the rain of gold that was going to be showered 
upon them. But, according to Professor Frank, it was a man 
of over sixty and, strangely enough, like Einstein a former 
employee of the Office of Patents, though in Dublin, who 
pocketed the fabulous prize. 

There was a mysterious factor in the blaze of Einstein's 
glory that was not explained purely by scientific achieve- 
ment. It was as though a troubled age was looking for some 
firm article of faith to support it. Did the pride which was 
taken in the peaceful exploit of one man mean the world 
regretted the waste of human genius in the bloodshed of the 
war? Did they want to replace in the future their soldier 
heroes with heroes in the world of thought? 

Einstein himself recognized that a generous impulse had 
played a part in the spreading of his fame. He said, at a 
moment when his notoriety began to irritate him: "The cult 
of a human being has always seemed to me unjustified. It has 
nevertheless become my destiny and there exists a grotesque 
discord between the capacities and the powers which people 
attribute to me and what I really am and am capable of. To 
be conscious of this strange discord would be unbearable 
without one great consolation: it is a reassuring sign for our 

81 - 



times, which are described as materialistic, to know that they 
transform into a hero a simple mortal whose objectives are 
inspired by moral and spiritual issues." 

In fact, at the time when the meeting in London placed 
Tiim in the limelight, the most diverse elements and currents 
united to transform the unknown man of yesterday into a 
legendary figure. One can never say exactly how legends 
grow. 

Albert Einstein, with his incomprehensible theories and 
his genius which the ignorant could not even check up on, 
became the prey of a legend that ignored the true reasons 
for his greatness. Yet mere chance, and the lucky coincidence 
of a widespread desire to believe in the miraculous, cannot 
explain why the choice fell on him. It is easier to believe in 
the instinct of the masses for appreciating anything that is 
authentic. Who knows what would have happened to this 
same desire to admire, believe, and love if it had fastened 
with the same eagerness on another man one who was 
capable of being taken in by his own myth? The fates are 
apparently careful not to betray humanity through one of its 
most disinterested impulses. 

Elsa Einstein told a story about the day her husband re- 
ceived the first photographs of the English expedition. He 
looked at them with astonishment that soon changed to joy. 
"It is marvelous, it is truly marvelous!" Everybody believed 
him to be rejoicing at his triumph. 

When the importance of this confirmation of his theory 
was explained to Mrs. Einstein, she murmured timidly: 
"How pleased you must be, Albert!" 

And Einstein, his eyes still riveted on the photographs, ex- 
claimed: "This really makes me happy!" But it was the qual- 

. 82 



ity of the photographs that made him happy, for he added 
at once: "I never thought that photography could reach such 
perfection today/* 

The first contact between the enthusiastic public and Ein- 
stein occurred the day after the memorable meeting. The 
Times had sent a correspondent to Berlin to ask him for a 
few words of explanation of his theory. Einstein was not at 
all reluctant it was the first time he had been approached. 
He even expressed his gratification at being able to say a few 
words about "relativity" (he still put the word in quotation 
marks) and made use of the occasion, after the lamentable 
collapse of international relations among scientists, to express 
his gratitude to the English physicists and astronomers. It 
is quite in keeping with the great and proud traditions of 
scientific work in your country that eminent men of research 
should devote a lot of time and a lot of effort, and your sci- 
entific institutions a lot of money, to examine the results of 
a theory that was elaborated and published during the war 
in the country of your enemies." 

Effacing himself behind the scientific importance of the 
event, Einstein stressed almost apologetically his personal 
gratitude, for "without this enterprise of my English col- 
leagues, I would have never received in my lifetime the proof 
of the most important developments of my theory." Suddenly 
the earnestness with which he was composing his reply for 
the English paper came up against his very specialized sense 
of humor. The correspondent who came to see hrm had 
given a description of his personality and private life which 
showed an appreciable amount of imagination. Suddenly 
Einstein saw himself as he saw others, over the top of a lor- 
gnette, a hero in spite of himself. And he added in a post- 



script for the benefit of the average reader this example to 
illustrate the principle of the theory of relativity: "Today, I 
am considered in Germany as a German scientist and in 
England as a Swiss Jew, but if one day I become persona non 
grata I would be a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German 
scientist for the English." 

The readers of The Times did not seem to appreciate this 
joke. Einstein's sally, however, concealed the bitter after- 
math of a conviction that was to remain with him always. 
But at the moment he was overwhelmed by the fame which 
he had won almost overnight. After the first encounter with 
it, and all the disruption it brought into his life, he said to his 
wife, to console her: ~After all, it can't last long/* But "it" 
still lasts. 

The word itself, "rektivity," seemed to lend itself to the 
most arbitrary interpretations, to become a parlor game. One 
day > when someone began to propound in front of him some 
flagrant nonsense, Einstein growled impatiently, barely 
lowering his voice: "You're mixing me up with Steinach" 
(a Viennese professor who had invented a rejuvenation cure 
which was the rage of the moment). This parlor curiosity 
had always been his enemy. He never could reconcile himself 
to it and from the start he refused to make any concession to 
it. 

Postwar Berlin, as though it were trying to catch up after 
all the years of isolation, was increasingly avid for all novelty, 
and open to all new ideas. Intellectuals wanted to make up 
for all the books they had not been able to read in those 
years. New values were accepted simply because they of- 
fered a change from the old ones: and in the general readi- 
ness to welcome anything new, in the general desire to forget 

84 



the past, the relief o survival was mixed with a more or less 
conscious need to rebuild life on a broader basis. But Ger- 
many had not experienced a revolution that swept away the 
ancient structure and made way for new foundations: she 
had only undergone the exhaustion of economic distress, so 
that her conversion to democracy sprang from too sudden a 
change of heart for it to last. The new society was built up 
out of fragments still in love with the past: impoverished 
aristocrats, industrialists with their fortunes intact, financiers 
who had made money out of the defeat, high-ranking officers 
of humanist culture, members of the foreign embassies, di- 
rectors and journalists of the great daily newspapers which 
considered themselves the leaders of public opinion. This 
society was probably not so large as people thought. Kurt 
Tucholski, a German pamphleteer who was also a fine poet 
(unfortunately too little known abroad and driven to suicide 
by Nazism), took as a refrain to one of his poems at that 
time: "We live, after all, among two hundred people." 

But the whirlwind created by this elite was so breath- 
taking and its activity so feverish that it deceived many as 
to the profundity of its influence and the abyss that sepa- 
rated it from the rest of the country. It devoted itself to the 
creation of new gods, by magnifying small celebrities and 
by entering the famous people of the day in a steeplechase 
of vanity. 

Einstein found himself all at once the center of attraction. 
Rarely have fanatics chosen an idol who reacted worse to 
their devotion. "Albert is a shy man, 9 * Mrs. Einstein wrote to 
me one day. "Yes, it is difficult to believe it, but it is so. When 
you say to people that he is humble, timid, and deprived of 
even the 'normal dose* of self-confidence, people begin to 

85 



smile." Perhaps the word "shy ' is not the right one. Elsa 
Einstein, though she knew her husband better than anyone 
else did, attributed her own shyness to him. She experienced 
real terror when forced to face a chattering crowd in a room 
with a slippery parquet floor that seemed to recede under 
her feet, glances that intercrossed like a canopy of swords, 
the expectant silence that stifled the words in her throat. But 
Albert Einstein knew nothing of these inner hesitations, of 
these nightmares that overcome the shy. He did not hover 
between self-doubt and unjustifiable self-satisfaction. He did 
not feel one moment pushed into the shade and the next 
moment pushed into the foreground. He never asked himself 
what impression he was making. But he never failed to keep 
the external world in perspective. People and events neither 
shrank to enlarge him nor cast a spell to diminish him. He 
had a perfectly steady sense of proportion which never al- 
tered: and nothing was more disconcerting than this stability 
in his relations with the rest of the world. He applied his own 
standards in all places and on all occasions: He was guided 
by an inner law so peculiar to himself that it was difficult for 
others to define it. 

His kindness was legendary. His good nature emanated 
from him like a light, indifferent to what it illuminated. But 
it was not the good nature of the great seducers who must 
please as they must breathe. It was the expression of his 
fundamental equilibrium, just as his gaiety was that of a man 
who was fundamentally sane. His kindness was born of a 
sense of social justice which he himself considered should be 
boundless. His compassion for victims of persecution, for 
people in need, did not arise from great sensitivity or a deli- 
cate shudder in front of suffering. He did not experience the 

86 



embarrassment of a healthy man in front of a sick one, or 
the vague uneasiness that prosperous people sometimes feel 
in front of undeserved misery. It was more a sense of respon- 
sibility which at once overcame hurry It was also a sense of 
justice, accompanied by a healthy anger with all those who 
did not have it. When one realized this fundamental intran- 
sigence in him, one sensed the rocklike nature which was 
concealed by his smiling good humor. 

The ridge of the rock was there to rebuff the intrusions of 
worldly vanity and the lures of ambition. One of the most 
popular hostesses in Berlin one day tried to tempt him by 
listing the distinguished guests she had invited to dinner. 

"So you would like me to serve as a centerpiece?" Einstein 
demanded sternly. 

"Albert is impossible," groaned Elsa, but she was secretly 
amused. 

Einstein's inner law was a law of economy. He hated 
numerous parties where men of intelligence paralyzed one 
another. With rare exceptions he accepted only invitations 
to meals with five or six other people. He showed himself 
merciless when he detected a subterfuge. One winter day, 
coming to see me, he found the entrance filled with over- 
coats. "She told me it would be an intimate luncheon/* he 
muttered, and quietly turned back. Elsa had great trouble in 
catching him on the stairs, shouting that in fact there were 
only four or five overcoats there. 

Usually his wife's diplomacy met with obstinate refusals: 
"Why do you want me to go there? These people don't 
interest me." No reasons of opportunism or considerations of 
social position and offended susceptibility could shake him. 
His celebrity allowed him a great margin of indulgence, and 

87 * 



his reputation as a crank protected him to a certain degree, 
but he would never have been able to reconcile this refusal of 
all concessions with unavoidable social demands without 
Elsa's help. She placed herself like a screen between him and 
the all too pressing requests; she became his interpreter, 
translated his abruptness into diplomatic language, and tried 
at the same time to make him see the humanity hidden under 
the conventions. Elsa's efforts to shield him were all the more 
admirable because she herself suffered all the agonies of 
shyness, aggravated by her shortsightedness, and had no 
compensatory feeling of personal self-satisfaction. These con- 
tacts with the world, the necessity of which Einstein denied, 
seemed to her, threatening as they were, an ordeal to be 
overcome with courage. When she resigned herself to accept 
an invitation several times refused by her husband, she 
dreaded disappointing her hosts by arriving alone. She ef- 
faced herself, as if trying to apologize. She, who had a great 
gift for conversation, for prompt repartee, for a picturesque 
play on words, would remain in a room, smiling a secret 
smile that was like part of some unspoken dialogue. What 
she had to say seemed to her of no importance. When a story 
of hers which she kept only for her friends, by the way- 
produced bursts of laughter, she would stop, surprised, as 
though saying to herself: "I didn't know this was funny!'* 
She was convinced that she was invited only because of her 
husband, that people listened to her simply out of polite- 
ness, and that the only interest she offered was that of the 
name she bore. When I said to her for the first time: "I 
would so much like to see you/* asking her to come and have 
tea with me, she replied that Albert was not free that day. 
When I made it dear that it was she I wanted to see, she 

- 88 



exclaimed in a suddenly shrill voice: "Me?" and stared at 
me incredulously. 

Among many other things, Elsa Einstein gave to her 
friends, as she did to her family, a sense of security. One 
always felt she was there, in spite of her busy life, smiling 
even if she was upset, serene even if deeply disturbed. One 
felt sheltered by an unshakable, impregnable confidence in 
her affection. She, on the other hand, was uncertain, barely 
conscious of what she represented to all who knew her, even 
to those who loved her. After many years, after various or- 
deals undergone together which had consolidated our friend- 
ship, she once wrote to me this astonishing sentence: "I am 
telling you the truth when I say that it is often impossible for 
me to understand why you are fond of me.** 

It is rare that the wife of a great man should have kept so 
little of the aura for herself. She retired into his immense 
shadow, perfectly at ease in this shelter. Pursued on account 
of his celebrity, she wanted to be forgotten, and she partly 
succeeded. It needed a nature as strongly tempered as hers 
and an unshakable common sense, as well as a sense of 
humor equal to Einstein's own, to remain immune to the in- 
sidious traps of vanity. 

She had, owing to her powers of intuition, more sympathy 
for human weaknesses than her husband; she knew, though 
she had never experienced it herself, that hurt vanity can 
make people suffer, and false pride prey upon the mind as 
badly as an imaginary illness. Her sympathy tried to soften 
the effects of Einstein's intransigence, although she was not 
always successful. A busybody who did many kind works in 
a restless way and embraced all good causes had pursued 
Albert and Elsa for a long time with her advances. She was 



so insistent, and Her disappointment as a collector of celeb- 
rities caused her so much distress, that Elsa was touched. 
"Couldn't we invite her to a musical evening?" she ventured 
one day. 

Einstein shrugged his shoulders. It was immaterial to him 
whether he played to a large or to a small audience. Music 
was a curtain behind which he hid. He played for his own 
pleasure. When people were asked to hear him play, it was 
always to help some unknown musician whose talent he 
appreciated. He laughed at this publicity gained at his ex- 
pense. "He plays well, I play badly, and he believes he is get- 
ting publicity by playing with me." He was amused by the 
illogicality of it. 

On that occasion he had enjoyed the hours of music so 
much that he forgot the crowd that had invaded his house. 
He was looking absent-mindedly at the flow of visitors pass- 
ing. The melody was still alive in him, triumphing over the 
voices that murmured compliments. Suddenly I saw his at- 
tention aroused. The persistent lady stood in front of him, an 
ecstatic expression on her face. 

"YouTI let me come again, I hope, Prof essor?" 

"No" Einstein said calmly. There was no harshness in his 
voice, only a statement of fact. He gazed with astonishment 
at the woman's confusion as she left the room. 

"How could you, Albert?" exclaimed Elsa. 

"But why should she come back?" There was sincere as- 
tonishment on his face. He could not understand the conster- 
nation he had provoked. "I don't see the necessity." He shook 
his head with the air of a man conscious of having allowed 
reason to triumph. 

To shake him, one had to use his own argument of "neces- 

90 - 



sity" against him. Those who did not know him well were 
surprised to see how few arguments had any effect on him. 
He was all the more impervious to them because he was 
totally deaf to all worldly considerations; one often saw him, 
too often sometimes, give in to requests that appeared to 
be totally undeserving of his attention. One would see him 
show the door to an important visitor "He is of no interest," 
Einstein would declareand spend hours closeted with a 
poor wretch who had asked to see him. He was often re- 
proached for the naivete with which he replied to anony- 
mous requests and, indeed, no appeal of moral or material 
suffering failed to move him. He dealt with them almost be- 
fore they came to his ears, as though in memory of the 
privations he had himself endured. 

Fame brought material comforts. It might have brought a 
fortune, but Einstein refused all fabulous offers astronomi- 
cal fees, for example, to appear for ten minutes on the screen. 
There would be nothing for him to do, they insisted, but 
stand in front of a blackboard with a piece of chalk in his 
hand. Einstein laughed. "What next? You really believe that 
111 behave like a performing monkey?'* 

One got the impression that Albert and Elsa were eager to 
get rid of all the surplus money left over from their modest 
way of life. They were besieged by beggars as well as by 
celebrity hunters. They found they had hordes of relations 
who confidently expected to be helped, and complete stran- 
gers asked for their help wih the same confidence. A queue 
gathered around their door, as though waiting for miracles 
to be performed, and Elsa had to sort out the crowds of appli- 
cants by examining each individual case. Sometimes the 
clever ones escaped her eagle eye. 

91 - 



"But, Albert, you*ve again given some money to that crook 
who has fooled you several times already/' she would say in- 
dignantly. 

"I know/' he replied calmly, "but he must be in need of 
money all the same. One does not beg for pleasure/* He 
gazed at us as if defying us to deny the truth of this. 

The rare occasions when Einstein agreed to appear in pub- 
lic were always in aid of charitable institutions or in defense 
of a cause. Sometimes Elsa made arrangements without his 
knowledge. He performed his duty, at first with a grumble, 
but later he would ask laughingly: "How much did you sell 
me for this time?" And turning to me, he would add approv- 
ingly: "She knows how to go about it and gets considerable 
sums for me at times/* 

There was, in fact, deep down, a fundamental contradic- 
tion in Albert Einstein, a contradiction between his total de- 
tachment and his sense of duty toward humanity. Spiritually 
he was free from all chains, but morally he was bound by 
them. He was isolated and inaccessible but at the same time 
he was full of brotherly sympathy for his fellow men. He was 
very conscious of this double aspect of his nature, which was 
the real explanation of his secluded life, interrupted only by 
violent interventions on behalf of the causes that were close 
to his heart. The passing of the years accentuated his love of 
solitude "painful when one is young but delightful when 
one is more mature" but they also increased his sense of 
responsibility. He never ceased to stress this duty of a scien- 
tist toward humanity. "The concern for man and his destiny 
must always be the chief interest of all technical effort. Never 
forget it among your diagrams and equations/* The scientist 
in his ivory tower has always seemed a ridiculous and despi- 

92 - 



cable figure to Einstein, and has even taken on in ids eyes the 
character of a criminal, or at least an accomplice in crime. 
He summed up the motives of his own behavior in a sen- 
tence: "Only a life lived for others is a life worth while." 

Disconcerted by the sudden growth of his fame, he began 
to use it as a loudspeaker for the ideas he wanted spread and 
as a means of action. He seemed to consider himself increas- 
ingly in debt toward humanity as his fame increased; as 
though his reputation was a loan that had to be paid back. 
He seemed to be waiting for an opportunity to put himself 
at the service of a cause. He explained one day why he be- 
came such a passionate champion of Zionism. He had aban- 
doned the Jewish community, and had remained a practicing 
Jew only on paper. But on his nomination to the University 
of Berlin, the matter faced him in all its acuteness. He wrote 
later on: "It was when I came to Germany, fifteen years ago, 
that I discovered I was a Jew and I owe this discovery more 
to non-Jews than to Jews/* He discovered in Germany a la- 
tent anti-Semitism, especially in the universities, which were 
and remained, in contrast to educational institutions in other 
countries, the principal fortresses of reaction, the hotbeds of 
prejudice. In this atmosphere of contempt and hostility was 
born, to quote Einstein, "the pathetic, converted Geheimrat" 
a man too uncertain of himself to resist the suggestive powers 
of his environment. "I saw the shameful pretences of Jews of 
high standing and my heart bled," he recalled one day. 

He saw, too, the mistrust of these turncoats for the Eastern 
Jews who were searching for true human values in their own 
way: and he perceived their fear of being identified with this 
as yet uncultured mass their desperate efforts to deny all 
connection with these poor wretches who were knocking at 

93 



their back gate. The attitude of German Jews led Einstein to 
ask himself what being a Jew meant to him, personally. Was 
it a source of strength or a wound that weakened him? In 
fact, what was there in common between Jews dispersed 
throughout the world, the cultured and the backward, the 
intellectual elite and the masses still repressed by ancient 
prejudices, the owners of fabulous fortunes and the profes- 
sional beggars? It was among the Eastern Jews, the poorest 
and the most faithful to tradition, that he found the most 
passionate desire for knowledge, an almost superstitious cult 
of "education/* a respect for the man of letters. Among the 
starving students who came to him, barely able to express 
themselves, the study of science had replaced that of the 
Torah, but the passion had remained the same. The desire 
for knowledge for its own sake seemed to him the most strik- 
ing feature of the Jewish masses and the link that bound 
them to himself. He wanted to find out if there were any 
other links among the widely differing Jewish elements. 

One day he talked about it at length to Walther Rathenau, 
the son of a man who had founded the most powerful elec- 
trical firm in Germany, a sociologist, a philosopher, a man of 
rare culture and one with a great knowledge of political 
economy. Rathenau hardly thought of himself as a Jew. He 
had none of the traits that are usually attributed to Jews; 
even his appearance was more like that of a distinguished 
descendant of a long line of overbred aristocrats. In the 
course of conversation Rathenau told Einstein: "If a Jew told 
me that he went hunting for pleasure, I would know that he 
was a liar." Einstein burst out laughing, but after a moment's 
thought, he was struck by the truth of this remark. He won- 
dered where this reluctance to shed blood and this unwilling- 

94 



ness to inflict suffering originated: and lie realized that he 
Jiad another trait in common with other Jews respect for the 
life of every living creature. This evaluation of life as a sacro- 
sanct quality seemed to him intimately related to his own 
reverence for the spiritual. 

Einstein feels close to everything that heightens or exalts 
life, for despite his taste for austerity he himself has an in- 
tense joie de vivre. He feels that he is descended not from the 
gloomy prophets of the Bible who prophesied that the hand 
of God would fall on the Jewish people, but from the psalm- 
ist who expressed "a sort of intoxicated joy and wonder at the 
beauty and sublime grandeur of the world" the same elated 
feeling that is to be found in the song of a bird, that stimu- 
lates the desire for knowledge and is the source of creative 
effort. 

Among his links with Judaism, Einstein discovered also his 
longing for independence and almost fanatical love of justice, 
so that he concluded: "These traditional principles of the 
Jewish people prove to me that it is my destiny to belong to 
them/' Einstein never lost that conviction even during his 
worst ordeals; he knew that the problem had been settled for 
him. But others had still to face it. How were the refugees 
from persecution, leading a precarious existence as un- 
wanted guests of other nations and making frantic efforts to 
identify themselves with them, to be given back their sense 
of human dignity? tf l realized," Einstein wrote later to a Ger- 
man professor, "that only a common cause that would touch 
the hearts of all Jews could restore the Jewish people to 
health." He knew that the current reproach of Zionism was 
that it created, in a world already torn by many exaggerated 
nationalisms, yet another one, and he admitted that this re- 

95 



proach was not without foundation. The word was an ugly 
one, even if it was, in fact, a "nationalism that does not aspire 
to power, but to dignity and recovery," as he consoled him- 
self. 

This early illusion, combined with his hatred of national- 
ism and his horror of all violence and militarism, was to 
throw a passing shadow on his future relations with Zionist 
leaders, and later on with the young Israelite state, which he 
had not foreseen, or even wished for, in the form which it 
took. "Laying aside practical considerations,'* he wrote dur- 
ing the fierce battles in Palestine, "the true conception of the 
nature of Judaism is essentially opposed to the idea of a Jew- 
ish state, with frontiers, an army, and a measure of temporal 
power, modest as it may be/* 

Einstein was taken aback to see the reality exceed his 
dreams but in a different form than he had imagined. He 
was a little awed to see the storm break out, when he had 
thought this work would lead to peace and fine weather. His 
dreams often came up against, not so much circumstances, 
of which he was a reasonable judge, as against the nature of 
men, whose reactions and possibilities of development he did 
not always foresee. When he was offered the presidency of 
Israel after Weizmann's death, he showed his awareness of 
this in the way he framed his refusal. "Scientific problems 
are familiar to me," he wrote in reply to the spontaneous 
offer, "but I have neither the natural capacity nor the neces- 
sary experience to handle human beings." 

At the beginning of the conflicts in Palestine, he had hoped 
that a reasonable agreement might be reached with the 
Arabs, "on the basis of living together in peace." He did not 
envisage the possibility of the conflict turning into a war and 

- 96 - 



ending with a victory. "We are no longer the Jews of Mao 
cabean times/* he declared, ignoring the passionate fervor of 
those youths who had nothing in common with the Jews he 
knew. When he spoke later of the exploits of the young 
heroes of Israel, of their stubborn work, of their implacable 
courage, of their surrender of themselves in a gesture of 
almost insane self-confidence, he spoke with great surprise 
and a disconcerted admiration. 

However, won over after the First World War to Zionist 
ideas, he looked upon Palestine as a refuge for all oppressed 
Jews, all the Jews in an uncertain world. He used the com- 
mon term of "national home** reluctantly, preferring that of 
"cultural home. 7 * He was particularly tempted by the idea of 
founding a university in Jerusalem; he thought of those un- 
fortunate students who came to tell Trim of their difficulties 
as though defeated from the start by adversity. On the in- 
sistence of Weizmann, who was also a scientist, a chemist, 
though now chiefly interested in practical matters, and a 
great leader of men, Einstein decided to accompany him on 
his trip to America to collect the necessary funds for Zionist 
organizations and for the foundation of a university. 

Einstein's adherence to Zionism and the news of his jour- 
ney with Weizmann created great perturbation in Germany. 
This conquered nation, which had, in a sense, felt rehabili- 
tated by his glory, this democracy that had established itself 
with difficulty amidst the resentment of defeat, feared that 
Einstein's conversion to Zionism might be considered as a 
repudiation. Most outraged by his decision were the univer- 
sity circles. This consciousness of being a Jew which they had 
rediscovered in him seemed to them a desertioji of Germany. 
Einstein was not impressed by his colleagues* disapproval; he 

97 



knew that some of them were violently antagonistic to him, 
knew about their more or less repressed hostility. Reaction 
was still in arms and the conspiracy of envy and mediocrity 
was always ready to attack him. He smiled, amused by the 
pseudo-scientific arguments with which the unconvinced 
contested his theories. During a concerted attack at a con- 
gress of natural sciences in 1920, however, he emerged from 
the silence that he had kept so long to reveal the real motives 
of this attack. They did not deserve in his eyes a scientific 
refutation; he contented himself with publishing an article 
in the Berliner Tageblatt under the title: "My Reply to the 
Anti-Relativist Society/* His theory had the misfortune, he 
wrote, to have been worked out not by a reactionary, deutsch- 
national German but by a Jew with progressive ideas. 

Einstein was impressed more by the embarrassment that 
some of the German political leaders, mostly Social Demo- 
crats, showed at the announcement of his departure than by 
the arguments of his colleagues who tried to dissuade him 
from the journey to America as an emissary of Zionism. The 
Weimar Republic was fragile. It was vulnerable to any attack 
and the Kapp Putsch had almost dealt it a death blow. It 
owed its survival to a unanimous reaction of all men of good 
will. Like all those who had witnessed this episode, Einstein 
was very much impressed by the quality of the resistance 
that had arrested the reactionary attempt, the spectacular 
effect produced by a general strike. The challenge thrown by 
the working class in their song, "All the wheels stop as soon as 
your strong arm desires it," became reality. The streets with 
their empty shopwindows were deserted and in the dead of 
night, interrupted by sounds of shots, a rain of pink pam- 
phlets was showered upon the town, the ridiculous manifesto 



of a pseudo dictator, announcing that all employees and 
workmen who were not at their posts on the morrow would 
be shot. By remaining absent, the workers carried off a great 
pacific victory over an armed conspiracy. 

Einstein drew an important lesson from those dangerous 
days. He believed that a mobilization of good will would be 
enough to combat a mobilization of arms. A unique experi- 
ence deceived him about the possibilities of a spiritual vic- 
tory. In the excitement of the moment, he felt himself closer 
than ever before to these German masses that had saved 
democracy. But he knew at the same time that the danger 
was not averted. Tomorrow, or the next day, the Jewish shel- 
ter of Palestine might, perhaps, become more necessary than 
ever. Nothing could dissuade him from his scheme. But he 
had always been the champion of the weak. So it was to this 
weak German Republic that he sacrificed the independence 
that Swiss nationality had secured for him and that he had so 
jealously safeguarded. He gave to this Germany what he had 
refused to the imperial one, in the way that one offers a loan 
to some young undertaking that needs the money to survive. 
He became a German citizen, but without any illusions about 
the expediency of his action. For the moment he had linked 
his fate with that of Germany. Nevertheless he sailed to 
America as an emissary of all those without a fatherland, 
both in the past and in the future. He sailed on this quest for 
funds as though he wished to silence the lament of the 
prophet: "Thou hast made us as outcasts and refuse in the 
midst of the people." 



99 



Chapter VI 



EINSTEIN'S first encounter with the New World was a sen- 
sation. Many American Jews felt personally honored by the 
arrival of their illustrious coreligionist and left their work or 
closed their shops to welcome the visitor: but it was not only 
the Jews who acclaimed him. On the deck of the ship Albert 
and Elsa underwent the first mass attack of journalists and 
the miming fire of photographers. They thought they were 
steeled against it, but it was only in that spring of 1921 that 
they encountered the stormy side of celebrity, the aspect of 
success which is particularly prominent in America, 

I believe that it was during this first visit to New York that 
Einstein was driven down the main streets in a car preceded 
by a gigantic poster: "This is the famous Professor Einstein.** 
Presumably his face was not yet familiar enough to make this 
unnecessary. Airplanes droned in the sky and flowers and 
multicolored paper streamers were dropped on the proces- 
sion. It was frightening and spectacular at the same time. 
Elsa was bewildered; she pressed to her heart the immense 
bouquet presented to her. 

* 101 



do you think of it all, Albert?" she asked faintly. 

"It is like the Barnum circus!'' he said, laughing, and 
added, glancing at the crowds gathered on their way: "After 
all, it must surely be more amusing to see an elephant or a 
giraffe than an elderly scientist/* 

The financial success of his journey was just as great as the 
sensation he created. He spoke with Weizmann to Jewish 
organizations or, more precisely, he let Weizmann speak; he 
addressed students and appeared at enormous banquets ar- 
ranged by powerful financiers 'Tike a centerpiece/* to use 
his own expression. He gazed at the people around him with 
bright, watchful eyes, as if they were a human species 
hitherto unknown to him. He did not altogether reassure the 
orthodox American Jews, who had taken refuge from social 
anti-Semitism and general discrimination against Jews in the 
strict practice of their religion. The practicing Jews wanted 
to know whether he was really one of them, and, as this was 
America, where matters of conscience are made public, a 
New York rabbi cabled to him in advance as though examin- 
ing his credentials: "Do you believe in God?" Einstein cabled 
back this truthful and brief reply: "I believe in Spinoza's 
God, who reveals himself in a harmony among all people, not 
in a God who worries about the destiny and actiogsjof man." 
Einstein was not very reassuring to the conservative Jews, 
who found his jokes about money in bad taste. He repeated 
all too readily the statement that all the great figures in his- 
tory were completely disinterested men, and added: "Can 
one imagine Moses, Jesus Christ, or Gandhi with Carnegie's 
money?" Yes, the man was obviously disturbing, but one al- 
lowed him to talk in his irresponsible way and one "coughed 
up," with an oblique glance at the sum given by a rival, 

102 



Hebrew University was born in the spring of 1921. The 
national fund was raised. But Einstein had not only "come 
to beg/* as he called it, and to be welcomed as a sovereign. 
He also received an honorary doctorate from Princeton Uni- 
versity, On his arrival he was greeted by President Hibben 
as "a new Columbus who sails alone across the uncharted 
seas of thought." 

He delayed his return to give four lectures on relativity in 
that university. It was his first contact with Princeton and he 
found it free from all outside disturbances, an island of 
scholarly seclusion amid the bustle of American life. 

Einstein had no idea that the calm scene which confronted 
him was to be the final setting of his life: that he would one 
day tread heavily over the very grass on which he now 
stepped so lightly. 

If he had no suspicion as yet of what the future had in 
store for him and he was not very curious about it he was 
intensely interested in America and the Americans, as though 
he knew that he would in time be living among them. He 
was won over by America's spontaneous welcome, which was 
simple and unambiguous in spite of its enthusiasm. He found 
his contacts with people pleasant and inoffensive because of 
this absence of complexity. But he also noticed that, while 
the average American was more sympathetic, good-natured, 
and optimistic than the European, he had less critical sense 
and was less conscious of his own individuality* "His life is 
always something he is going to become, not what he is/* 

Einstein had now entered that phase in his life when curi- 
osity was to drive him on endless journeys across the whole 
world. He had entered a phase of travels and numerous con- 
tacts. He had emerged from the seclusion of his studious 

- 103 - 



youth, the limited circle of interests, and solitary work, to 
enjoy everything that the world and man offered. Did he 
remain so impervious to external influences, so free from the 
clutches of his fellow men, because he had emerged so late 
or perhaps because his character was so fully formed from 
the beginning? 

At the end of his travels he was like a man who has been 
to a movie and seen the most extraordinary landscapes and 
varied characters flit across the scene a fascinating film but 
unconnected with his own life. Einstein's meetings with the 
most prominent personalities of his time seem to have been 
divided into those which took place on a personal level and 
those which were purely formal. 

On his return from America, Einstein landed in England. 
It was his first contact with the world of British scientists, 
who had been in a way the midwives of his glory. He spoke 
at King's College. Through Lord Haldane, the instigator of 
his visit, he saw a cross section of English society the nobil- 
ity, the distinguished dilettanti, the world of science and 
politics; the conservatives with their mild curiosity about 
everything and everyone strange and foreign; the liberals 
who had often studied in German universities and retained a 
sort of nostalgia for an idyllic Germany which they had dou- 
bly lost with their youth and with the war. Einstein also met 
George Bernard Shaw, who amused him with the running 
fire of his paradoxes, his manner of playing with words and 
ideas as though with little overturned pyramids which he 
tried to balance on their points. The characters created by 
Shaw were not people of flesh and blood for Einstein but 
elfin creatures of wit, humor, and grace. Speaking of Shaw's 
social satire, Einstein said to him: "You have succeeded in 

104 



winning the love and joyful admiration of men on a path that 
for anyone except you would have become the way of the 
cross." 

Not all sides of English life happened to amuse Albert and 
Elsa Einstein. Having just left Princeton, America's corrected 
edition of Old England, they were confronted with the real 
thing when they were asked to Lord Haldane's Scottish 
castle. This imposing castle had stood the assaults of time 
and it continued to brave the present with its feudal bearing. 
On their arrival Einstein and his wife were taken to their 
room by a solemn butler who carried a heavy silver candle- 
stick majestically in front of them. They marched in a proces- 
sion along the interminable passages that separated them 
from the rest of the world. Their large room was filled with 
deep shadows as though it concealed ghosts. They awoke in 
the morning in this immense bedroom, buried in darkness, 
like two people shipwrecked on a desert island. 

"Could we ask them to open the shutters . . . ?" mur- 
mured Elsa. 

"Ask whom? That man who brought us here?" Einstein 
exclaimed in terror. A long pause ensued. 

"AH the same, I would love to have a cup of tea/* Elsa ven- 
tured timidly. 

**Sh ... sh ... perhaps they have forgotten about us. 
..." A faint hope sounded in Einstein's voice. 

This journey was the first international contact he estab- 
lished after the war. So far there had been no clashes. The re- 
establishment of a contact with France was more delicate. 
When, in March 1922, Einstein received an invitation from 
the College de France, he immediately envisaged all the pit- 
falls the journey might mean for him and his French friends. 

105 



He wrote to Langevin, giving the reasons for his refusal. But 
the next day Langevin received a second letter from Einstein 
in which he told with his usual simplicity why he had 
changed his mind. "Rathenau has told me that it is my duty 
to accept and so I accept/* German university circles were 
indignant. The universities, with rare exceptions, had never 
in spirit subscribed to the Diktat of Versailles, refusing to 
honor the signatures of "traitors.** Great Britain, against 
whom all the hatred in Germany had been mobilized during 
the war, was already the ^victorious gentleman/* on the way 
to becoming a potential ally. France, on the other hand, had 
become once again the hereditary archenemy. 

Einstein shrugged his shoulders. He knew that his French 
colleagues were encountering even greater difficulties and 
that they had shown great courage in inviting him to Paris. 
He knew that the resentment against the enemy lasted longer 
in a country that had suffered in its devastated land than in 
those that had been spared the physical presence of the war. 
He realized how much accumulated bitterness there was in 
the contemptuous word "Boche,** and it was as a German 
scientist, as the leading German of his day, that he was to 
face Paris. But the promoters of his journey, people on the 
left, as many of the French university men were, were keen 
on this gesture, not only in order to show their respect to a 
great scientist, whom they knew was one of themselves, as 
far as opinions were concerned, but also to underline the 
brotherhood of the human race which could triumph over 
barbed wire. 

Paul Painleve, who had organized this first meeting with 
his usual efficiency an efficiency which he concealed under a 
vague exterior came to power two years later, owing to the 

106 



victory of the parties of the left This great mathematician, 
recently converted to Einstein's theories, now followed them 
with passionate interest. He was one of the rare people whom 
Einstein considered capable of understanding them. One 
day, about 1929, 1 believe, Paul Painleve came up to me look- 
ing absorbed and highly excited. "Remarkable, you know, 
this theory of Einstein's yes, the one on synthetic fields/' He 
pulled out of the inner pocket of his waistcoat a carefully 
folded booklet of a few pages. He went on speaking about it, 
stammering a little as he always did when he was moved, 
using superlatives that seemed disconcerting in view of the 
few pages that he brandished. I had heard nothing about it, 
but I had received several months before a letter from Elsa 
announcing that Albert was "concocting something big-" So 
this, then, was the concoction. 

"Is it long since it has been published?" I asked Painleve. 

"I received it this morning, but I had a cabinet meeting." 
(He was then Minister of War.) "I had to take it away 
with me and read it under the table at a suitable moment." 
Then he added sharply, staring at me with his round eyes, 
which had suddenly grown suspicious: "Promise you won't 
tell anyone about it. I assure you that no one noticed it." 

I could not help laughing at this idea of the great scientist 
at a cabinet meeting stealthily reading these pages, so diffi- 
cult to understand, like a schoolboy poring over a detective 
story under his desk. 

Painleve seemed a little dismayed by my laughter. "No, I 
really mean it it would make me look so silly,*' he said. 

When Albert Einstein left for Paris in March 1922, he 
knew that he would be skating on thir> ice. He would have to 
watch carefully every word and deed and not allow himself 

107 



to be rebuffed by possible affronts. He went, confident in his 
common sense and his instinct, and not even very anxious. 
When he arrived, he was faced with the alarming news that 
hostile demonstrations were in preparation. He was ready to 
turn back, without any resentment, but Paul Langevin had 
come to meet him. This meeting led to a lifelong friendship. 

Seeing them together, one was struck by the contrast in 
their appearances. On the irregular features of Paul Langevin 
passions and spiritual torments had left deep wrinkles and 
indelible traces. Einstein's regular features he was about six 
years younger were still young and firm, his face serene. 

Langevin spoke with his usual passion, his feline mustache 
bristling with emotion even when describing abstract ideas: 
even figures seemed to come to life when he spoke about 
them. His voice had a peculiar quality, as though it were 
yielding everything and he was making an unconditional gift 
of himself, when he was speaking to someone he loved. Ein- 
stein replied slowly, in halting French with a strong accent; 
to his great regret, he could not introduce into his speech the 
puns and the picturesque images that he favored so much. 
He contented himself with smiling now and then, an almost 
tender smile, or bursting out in his rich, rumbling, guttural 
laughter. But there was a complete understanding between 
them, an understanding on every plane, almost without the 
aid of words. When one saw them together, one was struck 
by the strange intimacy between them. When they greeted 
each other in the morning, it was as if they had emerged from 
the same room in which they had been closeted together in 
long, secret conversation. Their thoughts, indeed, so often 
took the same direction and remained for so long in harmony 
that their relationship seemed to exist outside of time. Ein- 

- 108 



stein shared with Langevin the same lucidity and the same 
creative instinct that knew how to extract the essentials. 
With that generosity of -mind which reflected the generosity 
of the man, Langevin welcomed all the ideas of his col- 
leagues, foresaw their importance, and stimulated them with 
his own enthusiasm. Einstein had a far greater dose of skep- 
ticismin all spheres than Langevin, a greater reserve than 
his more fervent elder colleague. But in spite of that skepti- 
cism and that reserve, he was always as ready as Langevin to 
fling himself into a cause, and to throw all his weight into a 
struggle against injustice. Their intimate companionship was 
based on their totally disinterested attitude and on their 
acute sense of responsibilities. Einstein once said of Lange- 
vin: '"His heart was so pure that he was convinced that all 
men should be ready for a complete personal renunciation as 
soon as they had seen the light of reason and justice." 

Einstein had a much more moderate belief in man and 
much more doubt of the power of reason. If he did not follow 
Langevin on the path of his political commitments, he was as 
ready as he to let himself be carried away by indignation, to 
act under the impulse of the moment, and to be led astray 
from time to time; their occasional mistakes were only at- 
tempts at the impossible dictated by their generosity. En- 
tirely obsessed with his own research, Einstein regretted that 
Langevin was not obsessed so completely, and that he gave 
too many constructive suggestions to his pupils and left too 
much to others the privilege of exploiting the scientific re- 
sults which he himself had reached. 

It was in Marie Curie that Einstein found a reflection of his 
own single-mindedness. He met her during his stay in Paris. 
She had grown old prematurely, burned up by conflicting 

109 - 



and devastating passions. Her drawn face seemed like a mask 
of death molded over the features of a live woman, her eyes, 
with their dark shadows, were deep hollows in that gray 
mask, like open windows in a house destroyed by fire. With a 
feminine impulse rare in her, Marie Curie always avoided the 
camera; if pursued by photographers she would protest in 
anger and cover the all too revealing face with her hands, 
hands that also bore the scars of scientific research. 

From her native land Marie Curie-Sklodowska brought 
that special fervor, that slightly insane courage, that pride in 
self-immolation, which is characteristic of the heroines of all 
the great struggles in history. She upheld this courage and 
pride with a deliberate sternness, with a passionate austerity 
the two words were not a contradiction with her and with 
a stubbornness that was like a constant victory, a victory won 
each day anew over a natural Slavic taste for fantasy and 
idleness. 

Einstein very soon penetrated Marie Sklodowska's external 
defenses. He knew the price she had paid for this dryness, 
this uprightness that was not softened by any artistic im- 
pulse. He admired her strength of character, her will power, 
unbending and sharp as steel, not unlike his own rocklike 
character. He wrote in 1935, on the death of Marie Curie: 
"The greatest scientific achievement of her life the demon- 
stration of the existence of radioactive elements and isolation 
of these, owes its realization not only to a bold intuition but 
also to a devotion and tenacity, through the greatest imagi- 
nable difficulties, that have not often been seen in the history 
of science.'* And since he was writing in times of distress and 
disturbed consciences, he added: *lf only a small part of the 
force of character and devotion of Marie Curie existed among 

110 



the intellectuals of Europe, there would be a more brilliant 
future before us/* 

Einstein returned to Berlin to relax at home and to enjoy a 
few peaceful moments before a long and trying ordeaL It was 
a beautiful summer day, that twenty-fourth of June 1922, a 
Saturday. Berliners had left the town and invaded the forests 
of pine trees that grow on the sandy soil of the march of 
Brandenburg, their key branches high up on the tall, slender 
pillars. Excursionists, rowing on the calm, silvery mirror of 
the Wannsee or letting themselves be carried along by slack 
sails, knew nothing of the drama that took place quite close 
by, in the upper-class quarter of the Grunewald. 

An open car was driving through the park: Walther Rathe- 
nau, who was sitting in it, did not notice the other car, which 
had been on the lookout for him for some time. It drove 
straight toward him: a few revolver shots and the cushions of 
Rathenau's car were stained with blood. The efficient way in 
which the murder was carried out was typically German 
this crime, committed in a few seconds, had been the subject 
of exhaustive preparations. This was not the first murder to 
be committed with such precision, by murderers from the 
same group acting from the same motives. The German revo- 
lution could hardly be described as a bloody one, but the 
blood that did flow was always that of the democrats, and the 
best among them. The revolt came from the left, but the 
assassinations came from the right. Even during the short 
period of the "red reign" in Munich, the victims were the 
revolutionaries themselves. Perhaps Walther Rathenau would 
never have been killed had a storm of indignation broken 
out in Germany after the first crimes. Perhaps he would have 
been spared if his Socialist colleagues in the government had 

111 * 



reacted with greater severity in punishing not only those who 
executed the crimes but also the instigators. On the contrary, 
however, a murder like that of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa 
Luxemburg had secretly relieved them, as it definitely inter- 
rupted the impact of the second revolutionary wave, and 
consequently they acquiesced to the story of the two prison- 
ers being shot while attempting to escape, instead of admit- 
ting the truth about the cowardly execution in the dead of 
night. 

Behind the murderers of Walther Rathenau lurked the real 
vice of the German revolution its fear of being a revolution 
or becoming one. But this time there were powerful reper- 
cussions; apprehension was on a scale with the crime. Possi- 
bly people were beginning to realize that his death marked the 
beginning of something more formidable than a series of iso- 
lated murders the murder of humanity itself. The murderers 
had chosen a particularly striking victim in Walther Rathe- 
, nau. It was he who had demanded a mass levy when Ger- 
many was on the brink of disaster toward the end of the 
war, and in certain ways he had more in common with his 
murderers, who had been rendered crazy by defeat,, than 
with those who had reason to mourn his death. He was a 
social conservative, not out of any personal interest, but out 
of respect for authority and for established institutions. This 
man of great integrity, who had never gone back on his word 
or avoided a commitment, had introduced the seesaw policy 
between the East and the West, with its vague taint of 
bribery, which paved the way for all the turncoats and all 
the disloyalties of the future. Had the tragedy not been so 
great, the loss of such a man so irreparable, the crime would 
have seemed a grotesque case of mistaken identity. 

112 * 



This time Germany reacted to the situation. Berlin reacted 
in the same way as it had reacted against the Kapp adven- 
ture. An impressive demonstration showed the fierce deter- 
mination of the working class to defend democracy. The 
Berlin workmen marched along, past the limits of the work- 
ing-class quarters which were the usual sphere of their 
demonstrations, and invaded in dark waves the principal 
arteries of West Berlin. As they marched, only their steps 
grating on the asphalt broke the heavy silence; they mourned 
one who, through his death, had become one of them. Their 
faces, old or young, male or female, acquired a curious 
similarity, the tensity and concentration of a crowd that is 
silent and buried in thought. This somber, interminable pa- 
rade through districts unaccustomed to such manifestations 
gave tremendous weight to the warning. But the terror of 
death persisted. Every man on the left felt "himself hunted 
and saw himself as the next victim. The trial of the assassins 
was to reveal all that was festering in the wound of the Ger- 
man defeat in the way of stupidity, unrest, irresponsibility, 
and incurable brutality. It was to prove that the murderers 
knew nothing about their victim, except that he was a Jew. 

Later on there was talk of the lists of St. Vehme, 1 in which 
Einstein's name appeared at the top of the list of men who 
were to be exterminated; but it was obvious from the very 
beginning that he would be the first target. 

Einstein was deeply upset by the death of a man he 
respected, and by the abyss that had opened at his feet, 
revealing unsuspected horrors. He had no thought for his 
own safety. But Elsa Einstein was overcome with terror. 
With all the vividness of her imagination she saw death 

1 The Vdbmic Court was an illegal criminal tribunal 

- 113 



lying in wait for him, her beloved falling under a rain of 
bullets, bathed in his own blood. She was like a wild lioness, 
scenting danger. But she employed the ruses of a serpent. 
Albert was to go to Holland in the course of the summer. 
Implored by his wife, who now lived in anguish, he agreed, 
in a moment of pity and tenderness, to hasten his departure. 
But he refused to take any precautions' or to sneak away. Was 
that recklessness, fatalism, or mere irritation? 

He never knew, probably does not know even now, that 
Elsa had persuaded the chief of police to keep close watch 
over the approaches to the station, that the row of men on 
the platform were plain-clothes policemen, and that the two 
young men who got into the compartment with him, their 
hands pushed into their pockets, had undertaken to deliver 
him safe and sound to his destination. Buried in his thoughts, 
he did not even notice them and wrote happily back to friends 
that his wife's fears had been exaggerated. He agreed, how- 
ever, to remain absent for more than three months, as he 
liked Holland and found the atmosphere of Leiden Univer- 
sity conducive to his work. 

"We left like sovereigns surrounded by a court/' Elsa 
used to say about their journey to the Far East she was 
exaggerating slightly. At the last moment Albert Einstein 
had fiercely refused to have a personal valet. "I have never 
had one and have no need for one.** The luxury that sur- 
rounded them amused Elsa. She explored the comforts of 
their apartments in the ship as though she were unwrapping 
a parcel containing a present which was almost too beautiful. 
She had never before had a lady's maid the idea intimidated 

114 



her from the startbut she said, half resigned: "One of us 
had to live up to the grandeur of the situation/* 

During this triumphant tour of China, Japan, and Palestine, 
ending on the way back with a visit to Spain, they both had 
a strangely transient feeling. They enjoyed the spectacles 
that spread before them with the freshness of people who see 
things for the first time. The same incidents, the same sur- 
prises amused them; they let themselves be carried away by 
the wave that would bring them back on the morrow to their 
normal lives. Albert Einstein always thought that "it could 
not go on." Sometimes, when they were embarrassed by an 
overcomplicated ceremony or a novel social occasion, an 
oversumptuous reception or the insistence of the curious, 
they repeated to themselves, by way of consolation, that all 
this was only a dream from which they would awaken in the 
morning. 

The Nobel Prize, which Einstein was awarded while he 
was still in Japan, consolidated what he considered to be his 
"frail celebrity." From then on he had to reconcile himself to 
it. In fact, when the problem was set before him, the adjust- 
ment had already been made. It had been managed through 
a refusal. He refused to change anything in his behavior or his 
habits. Refusal is, perhaps, too strong a word for it. It implies 
a more definite attitude than Einstein's, a possible choice 
between accepting or refusing. But he never envisaged this 
possibility: he was simply following his incredible destiny. 
He did not see, according to his favorite expression, the 
necessity of changing himself. He had been received by 
sovereigns in the course of his travels; he had spoken to the 
Empress of Japan and the King of Spain, and to the King of 
Sweden when he received the Nobel Prize; he had met, 

* 115 



at the Brussels Congress, the Belgian King and Queen; he 
had even assisted at the ceremonial of a proconsul, more 
regal than that of a sovereign, when he was the guest of Sir 
Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner in Palestine. 
He played, in a way, on the threshold of thrones, the part of 
Benjamin FranHin arriving at Versailles. His eccentricity of 
dress was less spectacular but his behavior just as rigorously 
nonconformist; his eyes sparkled with amusement, he was 
like an adult trying to understand the absurd rules of a 
child's game. 

Mirabeau had deduced from his encounter with Benjamin 
Franklin that one could remain a child of nature even in the 
midst of society. Einstein could give the same impression. 
But Franklin was consciously the prophet of a new religion of 
equality, while Einstein did not realize that his attitude had 
anything singular in it. He never searched for disciples to 
whom he might preach a doctrine of independence. His law 
was a solitary one. 

Einstein's frequent visits to Brussels and a common taste 
for the same music and the same German poetry gradually 
turned his relationship with the Belgian royal family, par- 
ticularly Queen Elizabeth, into a friendship based on mutual 
confidence. This friendship had no special emphasis for Ein- 
stein, He said "the Queen" as he might have said any ordi- 
nary Christian name. 

One day, in his country house, I was beside him while he 
was going through the pockets of an old pair of white trou- 
sers, searching for a piece of paper he could not find. With 
impatient gestures he was emptying the contents of the 
pockets on the table. They were the pockets of a school- 
boy: penknife, pieces of string, bits of biscuits, bus tickets, 

116 



change, tobacco dropped out of his pipe. At last, with a 
rustle of parchment, a large sheet of paper fell out. It was a 
poem that the Queen of the Belgians had dedicated to him. 
At the bottom of the large ivory-colored page there were 
a few words and a few figures in Einstein's small, regular 
handwriting. I bent over the table. Immortal calculations 
side by side with the royal signature that slanted across the 
page? I read: Autobus SO pfennigs, newspaper, stationery, 
etc. Daily expenses, noted with care, entangled with the loop 
of the regal "E." Elsa brought the sheet of paper nearer to 
her shortsighted eyes. Her husband gazed at her, with his 
eyes wide open, incapable of understanding why she was 
laughing. 

The Queen of the Belgians once asked him to play a 
musical piece with her which they both particularly liked 
and they acquired a habit of playing together every time 
Einstein passed through Brussels. Their common love of 
music probably made an understanding easier between two 
such dissimilar human beings. To the Queen, Einstein must 
have been rather like a wanderer from the world at large who 
came to tell her his adventures. She showed an interest in his 
political views in the same way as one plunges into some 
dangerous exploration. He did not try to soften them for her 
benefit. He thought aloud when he spoke. Sometimes the 
King would arrive at teatime and they would talk about 
these matters with Einstein telling his royal hosts that the 
world was crumbling around them. Then, after the King had 
left, the Queen and Einstein would return to their music. 

When the Queen asked him for the first time to come to 
Laken, her summer residence, she had to wait a long time 
for him. The chauffeur who had been sent to the station came 

117 - 



back saying that he had not seen anyone. Since Einstein was 
always punctual, the Queen began to be alarmed. A lady in 
waiting was asked to look out for him in the park. It was a 
hot summer afternoon, and the roads were dusty. After a long 
time she saw a man appear at the crossroad. He was covered 
with dust and his hair flowed in the breeze as he walked. He 
was balancing a violin in his hand and whistling gaily. "How 
could I guess that you would send a car to the station?" 
Einstein replied to the Queen's questions. Later the chauf- 
feur explained: "No one came out of the first-class carriage 
and it never occurred to me that Her Majesty's visitors would 
travel third." 

Sometimes though rarelyEinstein noticed the difference 
between his way of thinking and that of others, between his 
behavior and that expected of him. He would then tell stories 
of his misadventures with obvious pleasure, not only because 
his sense of humor was tickled by ridicule even if he was the 
object of it, but also because he saw all the absurdity of the 
conventional world which he shocked. 

To protect him from unpleasant incidents, Elsa Einstein 
had acquired the habit of providing her husband at every 
journey with a first-class round-trip ticket and, if necessary, a 
sleeping-car accommodation. She knew that otherwise any 
money he might have carried with him would go to help 
some poor wretch. But one day Einstein, who was in London, 
decided suddenly to go to Brussels. He had had quite a lot of 
money with him but had probably met many people who, in 
his expression, "needed it." When he came to buy his ticket 
for Brussels, he had just enough to pay for a third-class one, 
and this left him with only a few francs in his pocket. He 
wandered about for a time in the streets of Brussels, looking 

118 



for a cheap lodging. He ended up in a slum, covered with 
dust and disheveled, with his clothes rumpled and nothing 
but a small suitcase in his hand. "Have you got a telephone?" 
he asked the proprietor. The telephone was in the bar. TDo 
you know how to ask for Laken? Yes, the Castle of Laken, 
the royal residence." The proprietor and the early customers 
sitting in the bar exchanged astonished glances. They heard, 
through the open door of the telephone booth, the hirsute 
traveler who looked like a vagabond ask for Her Majesty the 
Queen. Was he a madman? Or an anarchist? Most likely a 
madman, but perhaps he was a^ dangerous one. When Ein- 
stein left the booth he found a crowd assembled at the door. 
While he had been battling with the telephone, the news 
had spread round the district. Two policemen were at the 
door. They were waiting for an ambulance. ""I really must 
have looked suspicious" and Einstein shook with laughter, 
recalling this grotesque scene. Perhaps he was secretly satis- 
fied at having for once escaped recognition. 

Einstein's fundamental indifference to titles, positions, and 
money is so complete that it seems exaggerated. One might 
almost believe "him to be an inverted snob, to profess the 
bravado of a rebel. But he has no personal resentment against 
society. It is not even an angry reaction or any deep pity that 
causes him to identify himself with the poor. It is more like 
a reasoned attitude, a conviction accepted once and for all. 
"The differences between social classes do not seem to me 
justified. I believe them to have been in fact established by 
force, 3 * he once wrote. He neither hates his neighbor nor is 
filled with an overwhelming love for him. His social con- 
science seems almost detached from its object: man. His 
sense of responsibility is, in fact, only the final expression of 

119 



his rigorous fidelity toward himself. The years have only 
helped to accentuate this detachment. His curiosity about 
human beings, which might have been taken to be an interest 
in them, became blunted in the course of his travels; he had 
seen too many and his love of the exceptional was exhausted; 
besides, the diversity in men appeared to him increasingly 
superficial. 

He has never really needed human contacts, but has de- 
liberately freed himself more and more from all emotional 
dependence in order to become entirely self-sufficient. Real 
intimacy and the unconditional sharing of thoughts and 
feelings with another person, so that one becomes almost 
another self, is an experience he has scarcely ever had: he 
fears it because it threatens the complete inner freedom 
that is essential to him. 

Einstein is fully conscious of his own dualityhis keen 
sense of social duty, and his desire to escape from all com- 
panionship. "I am the sort of horse that cannot be har- 
nessed in a team," he once said. He knew what advantages 
he could draw from this independence and indifference, but 
he also knew what he was missing. He explained the whole 
problem at length in one of his rare examinations of con- 
science which he called The World as I See It: "I feel deeply 
conscious, but without regret, of the barriers to my under- 
standing with other human beings. A man of my type will no 
doubt lose some of his carefree spontaneity, but he will gain 
on his fellows in independence of opinions, habits, and judg- 
ments, and he will not be tempted to establish his peace of 
mind on such fragile foundations." 



120 



Chapter VII 



THE real German defeat came with a sort of delayed action, 
and with disastrous repercussions throughout the country, 
in the years that followed the signing of the peace treaty. It 
bore no direct relation to the military defeat. Pre-1914 Ger- 
many did not die on the battlefields, or in that revolution that 
never really took place; it was swept away by the tide of in- 
flation. Conquered Germany had not, however, encroached 
upon its resources to the point of being unable to recover; 
she was to prove, after a second, far greater defeat and a 
more spectacular destruction with a far greater drain of her 
resources, her almost miraculous capacity for recuperation. 
But after the Versailles Treaty the true rulers of Germany's 
economy, the chiefs of heavy industry, the Ruhr magnates, 
had no intention of allowing German recovery to be rapid, 
or total. 

One of the most serious consequences for Germany and 
therefore for the whole world was caused by a conflict of 
interests. It resulted from the fact that the Allies and their 

- 121 



economic advisers were unable to agree on the final sum 
of German reparations. Their ignorance of the machinery of 
economics and their even more serious ignorance of psycho- 
logical laws warped the international situation from the start. 
Only a part of the German reparations was agreed upon, but 
no measures had been taken for even that part to be absorbed 
by the world economy without unsettling it or for Germany 
to pay without injuring her neighbors by her exports. More 
disastrous still was the floating limit to the other part of the 
reparations, which was dependent on Germany's ability to 
pay, a sort of bonus granted to insolvency. 

The profiteers of German defeat seized upon this bonus 
with glee. Germany never knew, and the German masses 
never knew, that their hardest trials, their profound misery, 
were due to the egotism of private enterprise, to a deliberate 
act of national sabotage. The first collapse of the mark was 
the work of the magnates of German industry. They were 
not interested in an increase of production or in national 
enrichment, as long as the sum of reparations was not fixed, 
just as there is no interest in accumulating great profits be- 
fore knowing how heavily they will be taxed. They were not 
interested, either, in maintaining a healthy rate of exchange. 
Owing to devaluation, they could scrap their debts and can- 
cel mortgages, they could acquire deficient enterprises, build 
up the most powerful trusts in the world, and prepare for 
international dumping. One of the most spectacular swindles 
of history was carried out under the cloak of patriotic duty. 
With the cynicism of the all-powerful, Ruhr magnate Hugo 
Stinnes admitted the deliberate nature of the devaluation of 
the mark, brandished it as a scarecrow at the meetings of 
interallied experts; he even boasted of it in front of French 

122 



representatives. But these "apprentice sorcerers" had not 
foreseen the power of the movement they had unleashed. 
Moreover, it did not personally affect them. They continued 
to buy factories for a loaf of bread; they scrapped debts and 
mortgages, and acquired property for a sum which the next 
day represented the price of a pair of gloves. 

Inflation submerged Germany, like the rising water in a 
stream, or more accurately like the lava of a volcano. It swal- 
lowed up fortunes, swept away incomes and pensions, and 
destroyed the means of existence, first in the course of a 
month, then in a week, finally in a day. 

On his return from one of his journeys, Einstein found 
Germany like a quicksand. His own family had been drawn 
into the whirlpool of disaster. His colleagues continued to 
live in luxurious apartments on the scale of their previous 
salaries. But they had to let rooms, accept as boarders the 
adventurers that came swarming to Berlin from all the 
countries of the world; they wore their frock coats to threads 
and snipped off the fringes of their starched cuffs with scis- 
sors. Somewhere in corners of these too vast apartments 
old men died deaths of which they were ashamed. The pen- 
sioned and the retired disappeared, too horrified by what was 
happening to them to complain. The middle classes, the 
Mittelstand, who had been the very backbone of Germany, 
were losing ground and were never to recover their old 
stability. 

The young rebelled against destiny in their own way. 
The older ones tried to continue their studies in the univer- 
sity, driving taxis by night and still wearing the dyed uni- 
forms that smelled of misery; but others carried their resent- 
ments into extreme organizations and joined clandestine 

123 



military groups and skirmished in Silesia or in the Baltic 
provinces; still others adjusted themselves to the times, sold 
commodities that they did not own, offered for sale houses 
and castles that they had never seen, and built up in one day 
fortunes that they lost the next day. 

With the devalued mark went everything traditions, 
morals, the desire for a stable and simple life, the respect for 
spiritual values and from this catastrophe were to emerge 
one day those unfortunate misfits whom the inflation had 
deprived at the same time of the future and of the past. 

Einstein was alarmed by the state of mind of the youth of 
the country, by the falling standard of education, by the 
material pitfalls that accompanied all disinterested work, all 
work without immediate practical application. "When scien- 
tific research begins to lag," he wrote, "the spiritual life of a 
nation also fails and with it dies the possibility of future 
development." 

In these alarming years Einstein was invited to join the 
International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation. The 
idea of a body for the international exchange of knowledge 
originated with the future director of the Institute of Intel- 
lectual Co-operation, Julien Luchaire. L6on Bourgeois sup- 
ported it eloquently at the League of Nations and it was 
accepted by the Assembly at the autumn session in 1921. 
It was at the start a technical body, on the lines of the 
International Labor Organization, with a modest sphere of 
action, aiming at the re-establishment of contacts interrupted 
by the war and the facilitation of intellectual activities. In 
contrast to the body born after the Second World War, 
UNESCO, or to that "Dictatorship of Reason," which was 
Einstein's dream at the moment when the atom scourge was 

124 



released on the world, the Committee of Intellectual Co- 
operation was not meant to launch an inquiry into the rea- 
sons why international hatreds led to war, nor did it have to 
prepare a program for peace; it was limited in its scope by 
national susceptibilities to a task still to be defined, which 
was merely "to submit to the Assembly a report on the meas- 
ures to be taken by the League to facilitate intellectual ex- 
change between nations, particularly as regards the commu- 
nication of scientific information." 

But, limited as the aims of the Committee were, they 
represented a fundamental need of the time. Einstein himself 
in 1922, when the Committee met for the first time, made a 
vehement speech for an "Internationale of Science." He said 
that true scientists had always known and believed that 
science was necessarily international, but in troubled times 
they felt isolated among their more mediocre colleagues. 
Einstein attacked violently this indifference of the scientific 
world, the trahison des clercs occurring at the moment when 
their loyalty was most needed. "During the war and in all 
the camps/* he wrote, "the majority of the men who enjoyed 
great credit betrayed the sacred mission conferred on them." 
He wondered what the men of good will, free from the emo- 
tional impacts of the moment, were doing now to recover 
what had been lost. He foresaw that a lot of work, many 
isolated efforts, and much patience would be needed in the 
future: they would have to ignore difficulties and rebuffs, 
particularly from official declarations, which were always 
more intransigent than individual opinions, for, he said: 
"Senatores boni viri, senatus autem bestia" 

When Einstein was appointed to the Committee of Intel- 
lectual Co-operation, Germany was still beyond the pale of 

125 - 



civilized nations, and even scientific congresses excluded 
representatives of ex-enemy countries from their organiza- 
tions. It was indeed impossible, as the Belgian Jyles Destr6e 
remarked at the first session of the Committee, in spite of 
all the good reasons one might have, to re-establish relations 
with the enemies of yesterday, "to make light of feelings 
which were still very painful/* But it was in an individual 
capacity that the appeal was made, according to the official 
declaration, "to eminent personalities in the different 
branches of human knowledge," and the members of the 
Committee remained "completely independent as regards 
their governments, which they in no way represent/' 

Personal repute was indeed the principal criterion in the 
choice of Henri Bergson, who was chairman of the Com- 
mittee, and of Madame Curie, and it was in the same spirit 
that Einstein was appointed, although he was a German, as 
was the director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, who was 
an American, although the United States was not a member 
of the League. 

Einstein was absent from the first session. He apologized 
on the grounds of having a scientific work to finish. Besides, 
he was on the eve of his journey to Japan. But neither was 
he present at the second session in Geneva in July 1923. He 
handed in his resignation. It was done on impulse, for he was 
influenced by the state of mind that reigned in Germany after 
the occupation of the Ruhr. "I have formed the conviction 
that the League has neither enough power nor enough good 
will for its task. As a convinced pacifist, I do not think I can 
continue to have any relations with the League/' he wrote. 

Einstein, who had never submitted to the neurosis of the 
war, allowed himself to be shaken by the wave of indignation 

126 



that had spread in Germany. In occupying the Ruhr, France 
had acted as a Shylock; the sinister character of its behavior 
was accentuated by the abstention of England, an eloquent 
enough condemnation of an ally. The angry reaction was 
authentic, but its exploitation was part of the fraudulent 
game played by the magnates of the Ruhr. The passive re- 
sistance of the occupied region was also a spontaneous move- 
ment born among the workers, a class struggle against 
foreign imperialism, but it was exploited not only by an 
incompetent government, endowed for a brief moment with 
a false heroic glory, but also by the supporters of militarism 
and revenge who were concealed in the darkness of the Ger- 
man situation. The mark was reduced to nothing. Millions 
and milliards turned into billions. The collapse was breath- 
takingly rapid. Prices rose not only from day to day but from 
hour to hour. Resistance became active. Saboteurs were sub- 
stituted for workmen and charges of dynamite were officially 
supplied by the Wehrmacht Young people, unbalanced by 
the postwar atmosphere, found a field for their exploits in 
the Ruhr. Blood flowed. A saboteur called Schlageter was 
executed by the French. His name became identified with 
resistance. He was to be the martyr of tomorrow the first 
hero to whom Nazism in power hastened to erect a monu- 
ment. Albert Einstein understood that his own sincere reac- 
tion of indignation had been used for ends the importance of 
which he had not foreseen. Had he had the smallest vestige 
of personal vanity, he might have considered himself as the 
prisoner of his gesture. But he remained detached toward 
himself as he was toward others. He knew when he was in 
the wrong and when others had led him astray. He knew that 
he could not identify himself with the profiteers of the Ruhr. 

127 - 



The same impulsiveness that led "him to make mistakes made 
him admit them. The idea that such an admission might 
diminish his reputation never occurred to him. To go back 
on a decision when he realized he was in the wrong had 
never embarrassed him. He wrote to the Committee of Intel- 
lectual Co-operation that he had been badly advised, that the 
League remained one of the hopes of peace, that, having 
resigned, he obviously could not return to the Committee, 
but that he held himself at its disposal for any useful end. 
Henri Bergson, after reading this frank letter, so humble 
and so straightforward, shook his head and murmured: "I 
am surprised that a man like Einstein could have written 
such a letter/* He seemed almost irritated with him for being 
so human. The secretariat of the League hastened to appoint 
him once more a member of the Committee. At the fourth 
plenary session, which took place in Geneva in 1924, Berg- 
son, in his capacity as chairman, introduced two new mem- 
bers. He praised, in his flowery language, the encyclopedic 
knowledge of an Argentine professor and journalist, whom he 
also extolled as a great poet of Latin America; then he "wel- 
comed Monsieur Einstein, both as a new and as an old mem- 
ber/* His voice became slightly acid as he went on: "He 
was appointed a member of the Committee, like all the 
others, without having solicited it. He was reappointed at his 
own request, therefore he belongs to it doubly/* The audi- 
ence exchanged embarrassed glances. Bergson acclaimed 
Einstein's work as one of the most powerful efforts made by 
man to liberate himself from the limitations of human knowl- 
edge, but he also added: "You have had the remarkable luck 
that, with theories so difficult that there are not more than 
a dozen men in the world capable of understanding them, 

128 




PROFESSOR AXD MRS. EINSTEIN IX THEIR BERLIN APARTMENT 
ON THE HABERLANDSTRASSE, 1027 

". . . like all the neighboring houses, uniformly ugly and unpreten- 
tiously comfortable." 




MARGOT EINSTEIN 

"Early in life she had discovered she had a talent for sculpture.' 



you have acquired universal fame.** The tinge of malice 
brought a smile to all lips, but it was repressed, for Einstein 
was there, pulling at his pipe. He appeared so serene that, 
were it not for a spark of amusement in his eyes, one might 
have believed that the meaning of the words addressed to 
Tifm had not reached Trim. Faced by such massive and natural 
calm, the audience seemed to become suddenly aware of the 
true nature of the greatness of Albert Einstein. 

That same session saw the foundation of the Institute of 
Intellectual Co-operation in Paris. The offer of the French 
government was met with mixed feelings, which Einstein 
expressed with an almost brutal frankness, softened only 
by his usual good nature. He stressed how arduous the task 
of the Committee was, how difficult the resumption of rela- 
tions, particularly since "unfortunately scientists and artists 
allow themselves to be guided by narrow nationalistic tend- 
encies far more easily than men in practical life." The great- 
est obstacle the Committee had encountered in its work was 
the lack of confidence in its political objectivity. There was a 
certain danger in the fact that if the Institute was established 
in Paris, with a French director and a French chairman of 
the Committee, the impression might be given of a prepon- 
derantly French influence. Personally Einstein had no fears 
in that direction, but he wanted the Committee to bear in 
mind these circumstances and the existing psychological situ- 
ation. "Dm et salvavi animam meam" he concluded with the 
smile that took away any sting from the things he had said. 

Einstein began to follow with great interest the work of 
the Committee. He intervened in the course of successive 
sessions in favor of proposals, some of which were technical 
and belonged to his own domain, such as, for instance, the 

- 129 - 



project for a universal synchronization of comparative astro- 
nomic measures, as well as proposals for the needs of telegra- 
phy, etc.; or the proposal for the creation of an international 
meteorological office, which he undertook to examine with 
Professor Lorentz and Madame Curie. He also supported the 
suggestion of an international university, because he thought 
the teaching of history was not inspired by a sufficient broad- 
mindedness. Historians were not yet rid of their prejudices 
and it was necessary to create an institution which would 
be free to recruit men on their merits and regardless of their 
political opinions. On another occasion he demanded facili- 
ties for scientists and students traveling abroad, who often 
had difficulty in obtaining the necessary visas. But he did not 
often intervene in debates. He was content to follow them 
with rapt attention. There was nothing about him of the 
scientist lost in his thoughts. Among famous men, none knew 
better how to listen. His prominent eyes burned with in- 
tensity; there was a smile of anticipation on his lips, as 
though he was preparing to enjoy a particularly apt expres- 
sion. This man, so sober in his words, had an artist's taste for 
the mot juste, the correct formula. 

He was listening one day at an intimate dinner party to 
Albert Thomas, telling about his recent experiences. His 
beard bristling, his hair seeming to stand on end, the direc- 
tor of the ILO let the torrents of his eloquence loose upon 
the League s inertia, Einstein leaned across the table, listen- 
ing to him, admiration written on his face, clear as a mirror. 
I was certain that he approved of what was being said, but 
what he enjoyed most was the dynamic delivery. In an inter- 
val of silence, his voice was heard to exclaim in wonder: 
"How lucky you are, you Frenchmen. You come to interna- 

- 130 - 



tional assemblies so magnificently armed. You maneuver with 
guns, while we play with bows and arrows.** 

In spite of the difficulty he found in expressing himself, 
he was by no means so helpless when faced with political 
intrigues as one might have expected firm to be. He was 
strangely versed in the ruses of underground warfare, in the 
pulling of strings from afar. He answered back astutely and 
on occasion he threw himself into battle with unsuspected 
resources. 

Such an occasion occurred when the secretariat of the 
League replaced in 1925 an Italian member of the Commit- 
tee, an enemy of Mussolini, with the Fascist Minister of 
Justice, Rocco. The members of the Committee were power- 
less as regarded these nominations, which were made inde- 
pendently of them and which were increasingly dominated 
by politics. Some of them, indeed, shared more or less con- 
cealed Fascist sympathies. They gave some proof of this 
when it was suggested that Rocco should replace his anti- 
Fascist compatriot on the board of the Institute, which had 
sprung from the bosom of the Committee. The moment for 
an open battle had come. Madame Curie opposed the nomi- 
nation on the ground that a minister in exercise of his func- 
tions could not sit side by side with independent scientists. 
Einstein was even more explicit and protested against inclu- 
sion on the board of the minister of a country where liberty 
of opinion was strangled and intellectuals were persecuted. 
To defeat the nomination he proposed himself as a member 
of the board. His smiling determination threw into confusion 
a meeting at which the diplomacy of compromise was gain- 
ing more and more ground. The usual threat was used to 
curb the rebels: Italy, in her resentment, might retire from 

131 



the League, After the customary pressure the matter was 
settled by nominating a supplementary member. To Einstein, 
the Institute and the Committee seemed more and more 
paralyzed by political pressure, hampered by the influence of 
various parties in power, torn by mean personal rivalries. He 
was painfully aware of the impotence of good will in face of 
these obscure forces, the Great Bogy of Peer Gynt, as he 
called it. He then sought refuge among friends and the com- 
fort of being among people with identical interests. 

One night, after a particularly trying session, he and 
Madame Curie happened to sit together on a bench by Lake 
Geneva. Dusk was slowly drawing in. A street lamp shone 
by the shore, its silvery reflection dancing on the surface of 
the mauve, rippling water. They watched idly, in silence, the 
ripples of the light on the water. Suddenly they started to 
talk, but their voices were now calm and unruffled. "Why 
does the reflection break on the water at this spot and not 
at another one?" asked Einstein. He was once more gripped 
by his curiosity in daily phenomena. Marie Curie's dry voice 
acquired some of the warmth that rang in the meditative 
tones of Einstein. They exchanged formulae, figures, quoted 
kws of physics. They were both-so it seemed to me-pro- 
ceeding across the silvery bridge toward a better world of 
immovable kws, removed from the confused restlessness of 



man. 



Music was another method of escape for Einstein, and 
always an infallible one. His contempt for social conventions, 
and his total indifference to the impression he created, made 
him indulgent toward his own attempts at escapism. 

One evening the Committee went to dine in a restaurant 
at Les Eaux Vives. The conversation ran on the events of the 

132 



day, avoiding the dissensions that had made themselves 
apparent. A band played a soft accompaniment to the noise 
of voices and the clatter of plates. Einstein was listening. He 
was oblivious to what was being said. Music was his supreme 
refuge. Suddenly he got up, spoke for a moment to the vio- 
linist. He took the violin from him and started to play. A smile 
reappeared on his face, his features relaxed as though he 
were abandoning himself to a dream. He gave no thought to 
the spectacle he made on the platform of a fashionable res- 
taurant, with all eyes riveted on him. He was alone and he 
was playing, as though cleansing himself from all the accu- 
mulated bitterness. The waiters went around in circles, 
trying not to make too much noise with their plates. The 
band rested, and the musicians lolled about with the vacant, 
weary air of men suddenly interrupted in their work Conver- 
sations were resumed once the first moment of curiosity was 
over. It was late. A dance band had come to replace the more 
serious music. Young couples arrived, hurriedly taking their 
seats; they had come to dance and they stared impatiently 
at the violinist with his air of an old virtuoso who lingered 
alone on the platform. They began to indicate that he was no 
more than a nuisance. Einstein went on playing, impervious 
to his surroundings. When somebody finally ventured to tell 
Tiim that it was late and time to go, he returned the violin to 
the musician with a smile of apology, and walked away, still 
with the air of a sleepwalker. 

The Committee of Intellectual Co-operation was a mirror 
that reflected in its restricted sphere all the fundamental 
vices of the League. Einstein was put off from the very 
start by the spirit of compromise that warped all relations, 
the hypocrisy that maintained a fiction of justice and equity. 

133 



But Geneva still enjoyed at the time the prestige of being 
the theater of the world. Its fundamental vices could still 
pass as growing pains. 

It was as yet an incomplete body. Germany was still a beg- 
gar at the gate and the U.S.S.R. was absent. There was rea- 
son to believe that the U.S., which had entrenched itself 
behind a policy of abstention, was having a change of heart. 
The League offered the only field propitious to great interna- 
tional gatherings. The general climate was one of obstinate 
hopes, of long-lived illusions. It was a time of optimism, 
especially in Germany. The new stability of economic and 
social conditions seemed to justify the birth of great and 
daring dreams. Germany had experienced almost overnight 
the miracle of the stabilization of its currency. Nnfhfng excep- 
tional had taken place, there was no special reason why the 
mark should have received the touch of the magic wand at 
Just that moment and been transformed from worthless pa- 
per to real money. It might just as well have happened the 
day before or the day after. . . . 

The instigators of the collapse simply realized that things 
had gone too far. They also became aware that the resistance 
of the Ruhr was a blind alley into which the country had 
strayed. Germany had found in Stresemann a politician who 
had enough courage, the rare courage of unpopularity, to 
undertake the liquidation of the defeat. It had also survived 
an attack that might have caused the collapse of the Weimar 
Republic, still weakened by the economic crisis. The putsch 
that had broken out in Munich had failed, revealing the 
weakness of an absurd leader who had abandoned his troops. 
This leader, covered with ridicule, a colorless and grotesque 
individual, was serving his punishment in a fortress and pre- 

- 134 



paring a large, vulgar, and pretentious book Mein Kampf. 

The trial of Adolf Hitler revealed a classic case of mytho- 
mania. An American student of psychiatry in Munich, H. R. 
Knickerbocker, happened to be present Fascinated by this 
pathological case, he found that politics offered a krger field 
of observation than any clinic for mental disease, and it 
was as a newspaperman that he made a brilliant career in the 
American press. Rid of a maniac and of his crazy following 
of sexual perverts and drug fiends, rid of them forever, so 
one hoped, Germany was to live through several years of 
startling prosperity. 

Einstein followed all that was happening with immense 
interest. He had always been intensely curious about day-to- 
day events. His escapism had nothing in common with being 
au-dessus de la melee. He was, as we said before, strangely 
in his element in matters of economy and finance. He liked to 
meet experts and put pertinent questions to them. This acute 
interest in the mechanism of economics was the interest of 
a technician in complicated machinery, in short, in all 
machinery. He also followed political developments closely. 
He knew, of course, the majority of the men in power, some 
of the political leaders had become his friends, and when he 
discussed topical events with them it was more from a feeling 
of personal responsibility than from mere interest. But the 
game between the parties and the maneuvers of the politi- 
cians only aroused his amusement. 

One day during a government crisis the composition of a 
parliamentary majority was being discussed. Stresemann ex- 
plained the changing relations of political forces and their 
influence on the formation of a new cabinet. The British 
Ambassador, Lord D'Abernon, spoke with the weight of his 

- 135 - 



long experience on the importance of economic factors. 
Einstein was silent, his well-shaped fingers cIaspJBg,the arms 
of the chair, his sparkling eyes moving from one person to 
another they had completely forgotten him in the animation 
of their discussion. Suddenly he burst out laughing. "Now I 
know what happens in Cabinet crises/* he said. "I remember 
a game I played as a child. The chairs stood in a row, one 
chair less than the number of children. The children hustled 
around, each trying to get a seat" He laughed, pleased at his 
discovery. The lorgnette view of the world had served its 

J * ,x .. A^^ 

purpose once more. After a pause, the politicians could not 
help joining in his laughter. 

Einstein's interest in the social plans of the times, as well 
as economic conditions and political incidents, increased 
with the years, The individual is becoming more and more 
conscious of his dependence on society," he wrote, analyzing 
the difference between man the solitary human being and 
man the social human being, who tries to establish an equi- 
librium between the desire to leave a lasting memory of 
himself and the desire to ameliorate the life of his fellow 
beings. "It is quite possible,** said Einstein, "that the relative 
force of these two tendencies is, fundamentally, determined 
by heredity.** But this relation between man and society was 
changing all the time. This evolution this transference of 
stress constituted, according to Einstein, "the very essence 
of the crisis of our times.** The individual no longer looked 
on his dependence on society as a positive factor, an organic 
link or a protection, but more as a menace to his natural 
rights or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his social 
position was such that the egotistiq tendencies of his being 
were constantly pushed f orwarcl, while his social tendencies, 

136 



originally weaker, progressively deteriorated. Einstein out- 
lined this dark picture in 1949. But the disappearance of the 
social conscience, which he then observed with such regret, 
had been clear to him even in the years when nothing 
seemed to endanger man's security or conspire against his 
dignity. 

A time of prosperity always accentuates innate selfishness 
and the desire for immediate enjoyment. Berlin had become 
an opulent city, in which poverty no longer disturbed the 
conscience of the wealthy; it was a city proud of its spiritual 
progress. But amid this intense intellectual activity moral 
principles weakened. As if by reaction, however, to this in- 
difference born of well-being, this blunted social sense, the 
sense of individual responsibility became stronger still in 
Einstein. This man, isolated in thought, this man, free from 
personal emotion, experienced with the passage of years a 
growing feeling of fellowship with other human beings. 
"Man can only find a meaning in a life which is so brief and 
perilous by devoting himself to society /* 



137 



Chapter VIII 



IT WAS a new quarter of Berlin, even more lacking in per- 
sonality than the other parts of this town which, except for 
the center, was stamped with an impersonal ugliness. It was 
inhabited by civil servants and prosperous tradesmen, but 
its anonymous character also attracted quite a number of 
"kept women/* mistresses of high officials or big business- 
men. This aura of illicitness removed some of the respect- 
ability from the otherwise solidly bourgeois atmosphere and 
lent to the very name of the quarter Bayrisches Viertel a 
faint flavor of sin. 

The Haberlandstrasse, quiet and lined with trees, looked 
so much like all the other parallel streets that it was always 
necessary to read the signs to be sure one was in the right 
place. No. 5 was like all the neighboring houses, uniformly 
ugly and unpretentiously comfortable. Einstein's flat cannot 
have been very different from the one on the top, or the one 
at the bottom, the one opposite or the one next door. The 
large front rooms were full of sun; the old solid family furni- 

139 



ture so popular in Germany contrasted with the pale walls* 
The reception rooms, the large sitting room, dominated by 
a grand piano, reflected the taste of an epoch rather than the 
aesthetic standards of the occupants; the need for comfort 
was stronger than the desire for personal touches. Perhaps 
it seemed all the more colorless because it served as a 
background to the impressive figure of Einstein, The un- 
distinguished proportions of the rooms accentuated the 
picturesque effect of his person, and the light-colored walls 
magnified his broad, easy gestures in the same way that they 
echoed his loud laughter. 

The dining room, dark like most Berlin rooms, had the 
warmth that intimate rooms usually have; it resounded with 
the good-natured gaiety of family meals. Elsa's two daugh- 
ters lived with them. Nobody really knew that they were not 
Einstein's daughters. They called bfm Albert, but in the way 
one would address a young father, with the indulgent, 
slightly condescending tenderness of the new generation. 
Einstein treated them with the affection of a father who was 
also a friend. They both looked very frail, with excessively 
slim and supple waists, narrow shoulders, necks that were 
too slender. The elder, lisa, reminded one of a plant reared 
with too much care and easily affected by a change of tem- 
perature. She looked, even after her marriage, like an anxious 
young girl; her face, with its delicate features, was revealing 
in its extreme mobility and at the same time mysterious. She 
asked for tenderness and protection, but there was a reserve 
in her that created a barrier, as though everything, even love, 
might offend her. She was the idol of her mother and sister, 
who showed their affection in the endless care with which 
they surrounded her. 

140 



The younger, Margot, smaller and even more frail, was at 
that time completely overcome with shyness which the anx- 
ious expression on her face betrayed. Early in life she had 
discovered she had a talent for sculpture. One would have 
thought that in the comfortable circumstances in which she 
lived she would have found no difficulty in developing her 
gift. But it was precisely this that hindered her. She was 
reluctant to show her work. If her mother forced her to do so, 
she watched the reactions of the spectators suspiciously. She 
kept asking herself if she was being praised for being the 
daughter of Einstein or for the merits of her work. If she had 
been poor and unknown she would have been quicker to 
reveal her gifts. Her sense of humor, inherited from her 
mother, was a strange contrast to her extreme sensitivity. 
She had also inherited the dominating feature of the family, 

the almost passionate desire for self-rfEacement. She needed 

j. -^i l ^,^^^*"^ 

the shock of a great joy or great grief to fulfill her promise. 
Margot could easily have passed as Einstein's daughter, for 
in spite of their very different physique there was a family 
likeness between them, a similarity in their attitude toward 
human beings and things; they both felt out of their element 
in this world. Einstein had always had a special affection for 
the silent child, and liked to have her near him, ethereal as a 
floating shadow; he kept on his writing desk one of her 
strangely expressive, austerely molded statuettes. 

Of all the things Einstein had ever done for her, Elsa was 
most moved by the affection he showed her daughters. She 
was, perhaps, a mother before everything else, a passionate, 
intense, anxious mother, who tried with great effort to con- 
trol this passion, as she controlled her natural exuberance. 
She had allowed herself to age prematurely, either through 

* 141 



laziness or resignation, as though she had deliberately 
wanted to put an end to her life as a woman. Her face had 
grown heavy, her hair gray before its time. She who re- 
proached her husband for the carelessness of his appearance 
was equally open to reproach herself. Tousled gray wisps of 
hair hung over her face; she pushed them back as one chases 
away a fly., and casually flung on a hat, flattening it with a 
friendly tap of her hand. "Nobody pays any attention to me/' 
she would say, with satisfaction in her voice. 

Only her eyes, slightly lost against the background of her 
fair skin, had kept their vivid blue, a very young blue that 
was surprising in the prematurely old face. But her expres- 
sion was vague and uncertain because of her extreme short- 
sightedness. Her glance groped around people and things, 
remembering more than it actually took in. Her disability 
created imaginary terrors around her. She advanced with 
bent head toward people she did not recognize, stumbling 
against furniture; at meals she peered at her plate with a 
lorgnette. An American humorist has told the story that one 
day at a banquet she started to cut up the orchids lying on 
her plate. Einstein, in spite of his excellent" eyesight, knew 
the depths of fear that his wife had to go through. He was 
always beside her when she came down the stairs. He did 
not say, as many people do to the shortsighted: "Just put 
your foot there, it will be all right, one step is exactly like the 
other." He would slip his arm gently under hers, reassure her 
with a slight pressure when she stumbled, and when the 
stairs came to an end, smile down at her as though realizing 
her relief and complimenting her upon her exploit. 

The haze in which she lived added to her shyness, and 
possibly her isolation was deliberate. It seemed that she 

142 * 



found shelter in her weakness, that she liked this blurred 
world that concealed from her some of the ugliness and 
greed of the real world. She confirmed this suspicion by re- 
fusing to wear spectacles and using an old-fashioned lor- 
gnette, though she had abandoned all coquetry. Her kindness 
was also deliberately shortsighted. A merciless observer, she 
really knew all that was being hidden from her: often a 
gleam of malice would appear in her blue eyes, only to be 
dispelled by her natural indulgence. 

She was fully conscious of having been favored by destiny 
in being allowed to share Albert Einstein's life; but she did 
not draw any personal pride from the fact, or attribute any 
merit to herself. She had surrendered herself to him com- 
pletely, and had no other care but her children and his well- 
being. But her love was in no way an unconditional, devout 
admiration. She knew better than anyone else some of the 
great man's weaknesses, and certain dark sides of his great 
qualities. Perhaps she admired more than anything else his 
faithfulness to himself, a faithfulness that very often alarmed 
her. The stories she most liked to tell about him were those 
that illustrated his disregard of convention and his refusal 
to compromise. Einstein deliberately gave himself a lot of 
trouble to make his family as happy as possible. In The 
World as I see It, in which he questions the reason for our 
brief passage on this earth, he says: "From the point of view 
of daily life and without going deeper, we exist for our fellow 
men, and particularly for those on whose smiles and well- 
being all our happiness depends." 

But Elsa knew that Einstein could belong to no one com- 
pletely. She knew his subconscious fear of all that might 
interfere with his need of absolute independence. She knew 

143 



that he did not want to get excessively attached to any hu- 
man being. If he did become so, it was almost against his 
will. He was vulnerable, and sensitive, but his sensitivity was 
in bondage to his thought. Elsa knew that even in his deep 
attachment to her he gave her only a share of his presence, 
that he was never completely hers. Einstein found in his 
private life the happiness which, according to his own defi- 
nition, depended on the happiness of those around him. The 
light that emanated from him was the light of their lives. He 
liked to see his wife and his stepdaughters laugh. I have 
rarely seen so relaxed an atmosphere as the one in their 
home, an atmosphere protected from the outside world by 
a secret conspiracy of gaiety. They were never solemn. A 
charming foreign artist who had come to sculpt Einstein was 
so moved by being in his presence that she spoke of him all 
the time as der Genie (the Genius), instead of das Genie, 
using the wrong article in German. They found this very 
funny. Not only because she pronounced the word with an 
accent, but because of the idea that their darling Albertle 
as Elsa called him in the Swabian way could be burdened 
with such a grandiloquent name in ordinary life. For a long 
time the family went on asking whether The Genius was 
back home, what The Genius would have for dinner ... A 
visitor might have heard himself announced as someone who 
had come to see The Genius and would wonder why every- 
body laughed, Einstein himself louder than all the others. 

In those peaceful years Einstein worked a lot at scientific 
research. He worked in his own way, pursuing an idea with 
the tenacity of a man endowed with a rare, a terrible power 
of concentration. 

One day Paul Valery, with the acute curiosity he had 

144 



about people, asked Einstein to describe tow he worked. 
Einstein looked at him with open surprise. Valery repeated 
his question. He wanted to know whether Einstein used a 
writing pad or little bits of paper to put down his ideas. "I 
don't use anything," said Einstein. "Ideas are rare things, 
you know.** 

In 1924 Langevin sent Tn'in a manuscript, a doctoral thesis 
in which Prince Louis de Broglie had set down the ideas that 
were to form the basis of the new wave mechanics. "I re- 
member so vividly," wrote Einstein years after, "the pleasure 
and excitement with which he talked to me about it and I 
also remember following his explanations with hesitation and 
doubt." But having read the thesis, he realized at once how 
important it was. He published a memorandum in January 
1925 in the report on the sessions of the Prussian Academy 
of Science in which, quting_aLJthe same time the recent 
work of an Indian scientist, Bose, he formulated statistics 
applicable to a group of particles which are impossible to 
distinguish one from the other. "In drawing attention to this 
new idea of wave mechanics," Prince de Broglie wrote later, 
"^Einstein's article undoubtedly helped enormously to hasten 
its development." 

Einstein himself was now setting out on a new path, whose 
branches might lead to spectacular discoveries, but which 
itself led only toward the unknown. It was to separate him 
later from most of those who until now had followed him in 
all his discoveries. It was the beginning of the drama that 
was to make of Tifm an increasingly solitary figure, challeng- 
ing alone even the intellectual universe he had himself cre- 
ated. It was perhaps one of the greatest dramas ever experi- 
enced in the realm of human inspiration, a drama of which 

145 



we have not yet seen the end and which, tomorrow, like 
every inaccessible pinnacle, may suddenly be illuminated by 
the sim or wrapped in darkness. 

Professor Inf eld was able to extricate the main features of 
Einstein's work and make it understandable to the lay mind. 
He stresses the point that the theory of relativity was the 
creation of one man. Its principles have remained unchanged 
until this day. But it is by comparison only a small part of 
the common effort of all physicists who are trying to work 
out a consistent theory of nature's phenomena. The revolu- 
tion that has changed the physics of our era is not that of 
relativity but that of the quantum theory. Though at the 
start the quantum theory was independent of the theory of 
relativity, though the work of Planck preceded the first pub- 
lications of Einstein, one cannot, according to Infeld, con- 
ceive of it without the part that relativity played in its 
development. De Broglie's work was influenced by relativity 
as much as by Einstein's corpuscular theory of light. A whole 
generation of physicists has been inspired not only by Ein- 
stein's main work but also by his subsidiary research. This is 
what Infeld had to say about it: "There is a certain irony in 
the fact that Einstein assumed the part of champion of the 
great revolution because later he turned his back on this 
revolution, which he had helped to create. As time went on 
he withdrew more and more from the young generation of 
scientists, most of whom pursued their research chiefly in the 
domain of the quantum theory." 

Infeld recalls a conversation that lends a particular poign- 
ancy to this discord. "I once asked Einstein: c Why do you 
regard the quantum theory and its development with such 
disapproval when it was after all your own work that brought 

146 - 



it to life?* Einstein replied: 1 may have given it its impetus, 
but I always considered these ideas transitory. I never be- 
lieved that others would treat them more seriously than I did 
myself/" 

In examining all the objections to the attitude that he had 
adopted, all the criticisms coming even from his most de- 
voted collaborators, Einstein explained that he fully appreci- 
ated what the statistical theory of the quantum had done for 
the development of theoretical physics. He did not disap- 
prove of the theory but to put it more subtly it no longer 
satisfied him completely. The reasons for this were deeper 
than those he mentioned in his conversation with Infeld. 
They were not only the reasons of a theoretical physicist but 
also those of a man whose persistent object was to reach a 
concept of the whole of the universe reasons closely linked 
with his way of thinking, his tendency to synthesis, reasons 
buried in his very nature, deriving from his particular type 
of sensitivity. Probably the sweeping range of his mind is 
conditioned as much by his scientific logic as by the moral 
standards which govern him, and which nothing but abso- 
lute perfection can satisfy. Speaking one day of the Danish 
physicist Niels Bohr, Einstein said that the unique instinct 
and the sensibility that enabled Bohr to discover the essential 
kws for spectral lines and the electronic states of atoms, as 
well as their importance in chemistry, always seemed a mir- 
acle to him. And he ended his appreciation with this reveal- 
ing sentence: "This is sublime harmony in the realms of 
thought/* Einstein has, all his life, searched for this "sublime 
harmony,** and he is still searching for it now. 

In the years when he became more and more conscious of 
this fact, his scientific efforts acquired both greater scope 

147 - 



and depth. One of the results of this was that mathematics 
began to play a larger part in his work. A colleague quoted 
one of his characteristically caustic remarks: **Since mathe- 
maticians have invaded the theory of relativity, I myself 
have ceased to understand it." He knew, however, that this 
^invasion" was necessary, that his ideas had to be developed 
along mathematical lines. During his studies he had in a way 
neglected mathematics in favor of physics. In what he called 
his "obituary" notes, he wrote: "When I was a student, I did 
not realize that access to the principal concepts of physics 
is linked with the subtlest mathematical methods." 

More and more frequently he chose his assistants from 
mathematicians. One of the chief of them at that time was 
Professor Walter Mayer, a small, round individual who, at 
first sight, seemed crushed beneath the personality of Ein- 
stein. Einstein's family called him Mayerle and this Swabian 
diminutive suited him to perfection. But in Mayer's self- 
effacement there was more affection than respect. He gently 
contradicted Einstein, interrupted hi when necessary, fol- 
lowed up an argument and smiled a little mysteriously, his 
head on one side, as he watched the figures drawn up in front 
of him. "It is he who produced all my calculations; his skill 
is fantastic, you know," Einstein used to say. 

Einstein's confidence in mathematics increased all the 
time. At one moment he considered it the "true creative 
principle." He was convinced that with purely mathematical 
constructions one could discover the ideas and the laws that 
govern them which would give us the key to all natural 
phenomena. This knowledge of natural phenomena would 
not, however, open up a complete, a final vision of the world. 
Only pure speculation could help to co-ordinate it As years 

- 148 * 



went by, Einstein reached the following conclusion, which 
he has recently made public; "A theory can be proved by 
experiment, but no path leads from experiment to the birth 
of a theory." It was this conviction that turned his mind to- 
ward philosophical speculation. One of Einstein's colleagues 
heard Professor Harnack declare in a lecture at Berlin Uni- 
versity: "We complain quite wrongly that our generation has 
produced no philosophers. The fact is that today's philoso- 
phers sit in another department their names are Planck and 
Einstein/* Einstein himself has not always been conscious of 
the philosophical importance of his scientific research. He 
had a mistrust of metaphysics, he often spoke of the risk that 
"thought should degenerate into metaphysics or 'empty 
verbiage/ ** At Princeton in 1921, he said: "I am convinced 
that philosophers have impeded the progress of scientific 
thought by removing certain fundamental concepts from the 
empirical domain where they were controlled and carrying 
them toward the intangible heights of the a priori." 

This almost instinctive rejection of a philosophical inter- 
pretation of his ideas was, in the years when he was first 
subjected to public curiosity, more a defense against the in- 
vasion of amateurs and facile interpretation than an estab- 
lished attitude. His actual starting point was as much that of 
a thinker as of a physicist. Hans Reichenbach, now professor 
of philosophy at the University of California, repeated a par- 
ticularly revealing conversation he had with Einstein: "Once 
when I asked Professor Einstein how he had arrived at his 
theory of relativity, he replied that he had discovered it 
because he was so firmly convinced of the harmony of the 
universe.** This faith was and still is the very foundation of 
his scientific effort. But a creed is not a philosophy. "Ein- 

- 149 - 



stein's work contains," added Reichenbach, however, "more 
implicit philosophy fhan do many philosophic systems.** 

Gradually Einstein came to realize this himself. Now he is 
certain of it. He has often repeated to Infeld: "I am more of 
a philosopher than a physicist." Philosophers have examined 
his work in order to define the system projected in it, which 
he himself has not constructed, leaving to others apart from 
certain indications, like road signs the task o interpreting 
it. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, the Library of 
Living Philosophers, an American series of publications sup- 
ported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Council of 
Scientific Societies in Washington, devoted its seventh vol- 
ume to Einstein, with contributions by all the greatest phi- 
losophers and physicists. The physicist Philip Frank defined 
Einstein's philosophy as "logical positivism." Reichenbach, 
trjfttig to qualify the "philosophical significance of relativity,'* 
found that Einstein's was more a philosophical attitude than 
a philosophical system, characterized chiefly by the depar- 
ture from Kant's a priori method of argument. "Let us hope 
that this evolution of thought will continue," he wrote, "and 
that even those philosophers who today still defend the 
aprioristic philosophy against the attacks of the mathemat- 
ical physicist will adhere to it." This interpretation did not 
meet with Einstein's approval. When he was asked to give 
his opinion on the articles in the symposium, on the state- 
ments, objections, and criticisms that it contained, he ex- 
plained his position in an article called "Answer to Critics." 
This reply is preceded by a remark which betrays a bad 
humor that is rare with him. "After a few vain efforts I dis- 
covered that the mentality behind some of the essays was so 
radically opposed to mine that I find it impossible to say 

150 - 



anything adequate on the subject." This bad humor is chiefly 
directed against those who maintained the finality of the 
quantum theory. To the question as to whether he consid- 
ered that Reichenbach's statements were close to the truth, 
he replied with a sort of mental pirouette: *I can only reply 
like Pontius Pilate: what is truth?" 

Although he refused to discuss his own attitude, Einstein 
nevertheless refuted Reichenbach's criticism of Poincare's 
conventionalism and the confusion that the latter was sup- 
posed to have created. He refuted it in a dialogue in which 
he made Poincare discuss the matter with his opponent. The 
dialogue ended with a statement by an anonymous non- 
positivist. Einstein also gave a lot of his attention to another 
article in the symposium, written by Henry Margenau, a 
physicist at Yale University, under the title ^Einstein's Con- 
ception of Reality." Margenau affirmed that there was an 
apparent contradiction in Einstein's thought, an underlying 
current of empiricism on one side and on the other the asser- 
tion that fundamental principles are "free inventions of 
human intellect." This remark, said Einstein in his "Answer," 
was perfectly justified and he would like to analyze this 
obvious fluctuation. A logical conceptual system becomes 
physics when its concepts and assertions are brought into 
relationship with a world of experience. In this case the 
attitude of the scientist is empirical. But in fact there is no 
logical path from the empirically given to that conceptual 
world, and recognizing the logical independence of a system, 
the scientist turns toward rationalism. "The danger of such 
an attitude," wrote Einstein, "lies in the fact that in search- 
ing for a system one can lose all contact with the world of 
experience. It seems impossible to me not to waver between 
the two extremes." 

* 151 



In this explanation Einstein gave as precise a definition o 
his own position as possible. He replied at the same time to 
the oft-debated question of his dependence on Kant, which 
Margenau had greatly emphasized "I did not grow up in 
the Kant tradition. It was only much later that I understood 
how valuable his doctrine was, apart from the errors obvious 
today. It can be summarized in the sentence: Reality is not 
given to us, but put to us." 

With this answer Einstein clarified the affiliation of his 
ideas. He also opened up the possibility of establishing the 
time when he became conscious of them himself which 
was rather late in his development. He was no longer afraid 
of being reproached with what he called "the metaphysical 
original sin." His mind was now firm, sure of itself, and 
nothing could affect it any more. 

There was another occasion when Einstein allowed the 
functioning of his mind to be seen in action, as though dis- 
playing his spiritual tools to the world. Professor Hadamard, 
in his Essay on the Psychology of Invention in the Mathe- 
matical Field, written in 1945, asked several scientists to ex- 
plain the mechanics, the process, of their mathematical 
research. Einstein gave him the following answer: "The 
words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not 
seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The 
physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought 
are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be 
Voluntarily reproduced and combined. There is, of course, 
a certain connection between those elements and the rele- 
vant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to reach 
finally logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of 
this rather vague pky with the elements I have mentioned 

152 



above. But taken from the psychological viewpoint, this com- 
binatory play is the essential feature in productive thought." 

The words "emotional basis" are the most revealing in 
describing Einstein's work. He never ceased to underline the 
emotional stress that enters into scientific research. In a 
speech he made on Planck's sixtieth birthday, he analyzed 
its stimulating effects. He believed with Schopenhauer that 
one of the strongest motives leading toward Art and Science 
was escape from everyday life, with its painful crudity and 
its hopeless dreariness, and escape also from the fetters of 
our ever shifting desires. But there was another, more power- 
ful motive beside this negative one. The same motive too 
and this is characteristic of Einstein's thoughtas the one 
that animates the painter, the -poet, the philosopher, and the 
scientist who try to form a comprehensive and simplified 
image of the world in order to rise above the world of 
physical experience: to create a substitute for it with this 
spiritual construction. Into this image and the formation of 
this image, Einstein then said, "man moves the center of 
gravity of his sentimental life and looks for the calm and 
balance that he cannot find in the too narrow circle of his 
personal life/* 

He himself moved all his human happiness toward tins 
center, broke all his ties with human matters, in order to 
belong completely to this image of the world. This voluntary 
immolation, this total transference have, with Einstein, the 
same quality as religious fervor. They are, in fact, his reli- 
gion. "It would be difficult to find," he once wrote, "a scien- 
tific mind which penetrated into the depths of all things and 
did not have its own religion." 

Like so many men of his generation, whether Catholic, 

153 * 



Protestant, or Jew, Einstein had freed himself from his faith 
quite naturally, without friction or conflict, as if overcoming 
growing pains. But in contrast with many freethinkers of 
his time, he did not become either frantically atheist or anti- 
clerical. In this, as in so many other things, his clear-minded- 
ness enabled him to keep a sense of proportion. He denied 
that science and religion need necessarily be irreconcilable 
enemies. This conflict belonged, according to him, to a stage 
in science which had long been surpassed namely, when 
reason rebelled against religious terror. Science, embracing 
larger and vaster horizons, had now left flat rationalism be- 
hind. The real conflict between faith and science revolved 
around the concept of a personal god. Einstein refused to 
admit a God who would reward or punishjthe beings that he 
himself created, a God who could be reached by prayer or 
angered by the neglect of some jgcular rite. But he recog- 
nized the existence of a force superior to our petty lives, 
which follow their course between the limits of what is pos- 
sible, illuminated only by the light of knowledge. *TThe 
knowledge of what exists" wrote Einstein, "does not auto- 
matically teach us anything about what should exist. The 
knowledge of truth as such is a wonderful thing, but it is so 
little capable of serving as a guide that it cannot even prove 
the justification and the value of the aspiration to know the 
truth." 

Einstein calls this superior force that orientates our life 
and gives it its superpersonal content cosmic religion. It is 
this religion that has taken the place of the ethics of a reli- 
gion of fear, that has based morality on man's consciousness 
of the nobility of his aims and on his sense of dignity. This 
faith became firmer and deeper with Einstein as the years 

* 154 



went by. It was this faith that caused him to say in 1940: 
"Science without religion is lame; religion without science 
is blind.'* Religion as he understands it reveals on the one 
hand the immovable laws of the universe and on the other 
the precariousness of all mortal things. But it also has for 
him, increasingly, a mysterious element. He said one day: 
"The man who is not familiar with this sense of the mysteri- 
ous, and who has lost the faculty of wonder and veneration, 
is a dead man/' It is as if his consciousness of the mysterious 
grew with the number of new laws of the universe that were 
revealed to him, the laws that direct the nebulae and the 
atoms. 

One might have expected to find in a man who had 
reached so far beyond the limits of knowledge the pride in 
speculative power and the superiority of an experienced trav- 
eler who returns from a difficult expedition smiling at our 
hesitations when faced with a hitherto unknown path. But 
what happened was the opposite. At every stage in his life 
Einstein experienced a secret wonder and the feeling that 
he was facing a remarkable adventure. He seems to have 
only just started the exploration of man and of the universe. 
One day I spoke to him about something I had seen in a 
paper on the existence of a human fluid, the possibilities of 
which were now under examination. I did not know whether 
the matter should be treated seriously; it seemed to be linked 
with the obsolete theories of human magnetism and spirit- 
ualistic research. To my surprise Einstein did not shrug his 
shoulders. "It is possible that there are human emanations of 
which we are ignorant. You remember how skeptical every- 
one was about electric currents and invisible waves? Science 
is still in its infancy/' He refused to consider everything 

155 - 



mysterious as alien to exact science. In his "Answer," written 
on the eve of his seventieth birthday, he illustrates this con- 
viction with a brief conversation he had one day with a 
theoretical physicist: "He: I am inclined to believe in telep- 
athy. I: This has probably more relation to physics than to 
psychology. He: Yes." 

In his voluntary solitude, new horizons opened up in front 
of him, beyond the things that our obtuse senses can take in 
today. His great dream was to discover a physical science, a 
new science, capable of penetrating the mystery to which 
our brief passage on this earth is subordinated. 

One of his colleagues, Sommerfeld, asked him one day: 
*Is there a reality outside us?" 

Einstein replied: "Yes, I believe there is." 

He believes also that with the exploration of this reality 
outside us a new era would begin for humanity. 



156 



Chapter IX 



"THE moral urge," Einstein said one day, "is the most valu- 
able traditional endowment of humanity." He makes it clear 
that this imperative is not necessarily connected with auster- 
ity, with privations, or with accepted sacrifices: "Moral 
behavior does not simply consist in giving up certain pleas- 
ures in life, but rather in taking an interest in a happier fate 
for all men." 

It is in keeping with this feeling of moral imperative that 
Einstein lent the prestige of his name and association to an 
enterprise which he warmly acclaimed the foundation of 
university courses in Davos. Though he had always been in 
perfect health himself, he was particularly sensitive to the 
misery of young people removed from the circle of the living 
for any length of time through disease. In the fresh air and 
brilliant sunshine of high altitudes, they recoveredor at 
least they had a hope of recovering their health. But the 
magic mountain meant to them a break with their former 
environment, months or years lost as far as their studies were 



concerned. With an understanding rare among the healthy, 
Einstein realized how much a young human being, preoccu- 
pied with his physical condition, loses his vitality, and how 
much the necessity for a total effort in the struggle for life 
becomes blunted, making the return to normal life difficult. 
He believed that to continue their studies, so far as their 
physical condition allowed them to do so, would be a strong 
stimulant to the young invalids. In his enthusiasm for the 
scheme, Einstein agreed, at the beginning of the year 1928, 
to deliver some lectures at Davos himself. 

His generous gesture, however, had almost fatal conse- 
quences. The high altitude proved dangerous to him: his 
heart was unable to stand it. He was taken down from the 
mountains a very sick man. Einstein looked upon his con- 
dition with the same detachment as he did upon all that 
happened to him. The proximity of death had no more mean- 
ing to him than that of life. For Elsa, however, the shock was 
terrible. Even when perfectly fit, her husband always seemed 
fragile to her, a precious being, constantly surrounded with 
multiple dangers. She never forgot the months she spent 
then, trembling for his life. Later her happy moments were 
always haunted by those months of anxiety. She watched 
him., furtively, because he did not like to be the object of 
attention. She looked for the signs of fatigue on his face, the 
dark patches under the eyes; she trembled whenever he was 
late for an appointment, but dared not tremble in front of 
him. When the waiting had been too long, she would say, 
with her face lined with anguish but forcing a smile to her 
lips: "You are a little late, Albert. . . /' From then on the 
tragedy of Elsa Einstein was continuous, torn as she was be- 
tween her feelings as a mother and her excessive concentra- 

158 



tion on the man she loved, with her constant fear for his life. 

Albert Einstein was condemned to absolute immobility. 
He spent several months in bed and was convalescent for a 
long time. He was an impossible invalid. As soon as his 
strength returned he refused to be careful. He avoided the 
vigilance of the doctors; and also, though with greater diffi- 
culty, the vigilance of Elsa. Very soon he demanded his pipe, 
which had been strictly forbidden. As though to show his 
powers of self-control, he would pull at his extinguished pipe 
before lighting it. Every pipe he lit was like a dagger thrust 
into Elsa's heart. 

"How many have you smoked already?" she asked timidly. 

"This is the first," he invariably replied. 

"But I saw you just now . . /* 

"Well, it might have been the second.** 

"The fourth at least," continued Elsa. 

"You're not going to tell me you're better at mathematics 
than I am/* said Einstein, laughing. 

The moment came when he refused to consider himself an 
invalid any longer. "It's all over/' he said. "We won't talk 
any more about it." Once more he radiated health. His air of 
vibrating vitality, his sense of fulfillment, made everyone 
around Trim appear almost corpselike. Only pretty women, 
with their make-up, the sparkle of their eyes, and their easy 
laughter, managed to make themselves felt in his presence. 

The illness served almost as a youth cure. He returned to 
work, in his quiet way, as though he had been storing away 
in peace the harvest of long solitary thoughts. He. spoke 
about it as little as he had always done and only his intimate 
associates were allowed into the secret. But suddenly every- 
body learned that he was very soon to publish an important 

159 



work. The news crossed the ocean. Journalists and American 
publishers showered cables upon him and offered astronom- 
ical sums for a short precis, or at least an indication as to its 
contents. In the quiet Haberlandstrasse cars waited from 
morning till night Journalists from all countries crowded 
around the house. Photographers directed their cameras 
upon the front door. Einstein retreated in horror in face of 
the first journalists who assaulted him. "I don't understand! 
What is all this fuss about?" He really seemed not to see the 
least relation between the work he was producing and the 
curious crowd that knocked at his door. 

His thesis, published in the reports of sessions of the Prus- 
sian Academy, covered no more than five pages. When it 
was transmitted to an American newspaper it proved to be 
quite incomprehensible to the ordinary mortal. But the pub- 
lic did not dare show its disappointment It found, on the 
contrary, a magic quality in this series of equations and 
geometrical formulae, as it might have done in the abraca- 
dabra signs on amulets. Einstein's celebrity was now such 
that everything that concerned Tifm acquired "news value." 
The little manuscript was instantly bought by the admin- 
istrators of Wesleyan University and deposited, as a treasure, 
in the Olin Library. 

As for the scientific world, Einstein's thesis appeared to it 
as a revolution. His "Theory of the Unified Field** sum- 
marized in a series of equations the laws that govern the two 
fundamental forces of the universe, gravitation and electro- 
magnetism. Einstein tried to identify the attraction of gravi- 
tation and to reduce it to an electromagnetic phenomena. 
His attempt was a logical consequence of his preceding work, 
the search for a synthesis that would embrace the universe. 

- 160 





THE EINSTEIN HOUSE IN CAPUTH, NEAR BERLIN 
house rose in front of m innnnnrrnmieV -mnA**-** 




MRS. ELSA EIXSTEIX IX THE HOUSE AT CAPUTH 

tc . . . she had provided Swabian dishes, fried liver pasties with small 

egg noodles/' 



He said later on: "The idea that there should exist two struc- 
tures in space, independent of one another the gravitating 
space and the electromagnetic one is intolerable.** His 
thesis, the first insurrection against this duality, has been 
qualified by certain physicists like Professor Frank as a "work 
of great logical and aesthetic perfection for the initiated.** 
But his theory could also, according to Planck's terminology, 
be considered as a deviation toward metaphysics. In fact 
Einstein later rejected as unsatisfactory the results at which 
he arrived in 1929. He realized that he had been wrong. But 
this rejection did not affect the direction he had followed. In 
the eyes of young physicists, however, the road to which he 
was now obstinately to adhere seemed to lead toward a 
nebulous unknown, certainly a problematic one. It was at the 
moment when his success was most startling, most spectacu- 
lar, that Einstein began to branch away from contemporary 
physics. 

The sensation produced by his first attempt at a synthesis 
was due to elements some of which have little relation to 
scientific criticism. From the moment he emerged from ob- 
scurity a subtle combination of events took place around 
him, which created a special emotional tension. There was 
a tendency, so to speak, to push him onto a platform and 
make him the target for attack He was always the center of 
attention, and usually reluctantly so. The publication of his 
theory on the unified field coincided with his fiftieth birth- 
day. It seemed a providential coincidence. Everybody was 
filled with admiration, whether it was because he was only 
fifty and had been famous for so long, or because, his youth 
left behind, he was still brimming over with activity, as 
though all the promises of life were still in the future. In the 

- 161 - 



eagerness to celebrate liis birthday, there was a desire to 
identify oneself with him, the pride of living in the same era 
with him, of having known him or of being in the position 
to know him. 

The Weimar Republic, preparing to celebrate this day 
with all the pomp it deserved, seemed to be celebrating its 
own success at the same time. Germany was still on the crest 
of the wave little did she know how short a time it was to 
last A feeling of well-being is particularly conducive to 
celebrations and these had an especially unanimous flavor. 
Germany seemed to share with the whole world in exalting 
its national hero, who symbolized bloodless victories in the 
realms of thought. The rich Jews felt they were the richer 
because he was one of them: to every persecuted Jew he 
stood for the possibility of a revenge on destiny. He was at 
the same time far above people and very near them: he was 
a familiar figure both to the privileged who had had him as 
their guest at one time or another and to the little shopgirl 
who had seen his picture in the paper and was proud of re- 
membering what he looked like. Without knowing much 
about him, the man in the street knew that he was human 
because of a few anecdotes that illustrated his sense of hu- 
mor and his kindness. In the whirlpool created around his 
birthday the conviction that he belonged to everyone, be- 
yond classes and frontiers, was the chief impulse. And this 
was perhaps the key to his celebrity: this capacity for oblit- 
erating social barriers, for breaking down man's solitude by 
making him join in the same faith, the same spiritual exalta- 
tion. 

Greetings arrived from all parts of the world; telegrams 
came in such numbers that they were delivered in laundry 

- 162 



baskets. Masses of presents arrived together with the baskets 
of telegrams. There were luxurious presents, exotic ones, and 
eccentric onesgifts from millionaires and offerings from the 
humble. Friends were asked to help unwrap the parcels. No 
sooner had one present emerged from its case than Elsa 
rushed to inspect another one. "After all, I must tell him what 
he has received,** she kept repeating. For Albert Einstein 
took no part in the chaos that had invaded his flat. He had 
escaped a few days before and found refuge in the country. 
Only his wife, who was to join him later, knew where he was. 
On the great day she was wakened early by the telephone. 

"How nice of you to call me, Albert.** 

There was no telephone in the house where he was living. 
Tit's important,** said Einstein; "there is a mistake in the cal- 
culations I gave to my assistant." And he begged her to see 
that they were corrected at once. 

"But I wanted to tell you, Albert . . .** Elsa interrupted 
him. One could feel him growing impatient on the other side 
of the line. "Don't you know what day it is today?"* his wife 
asked him at last. 

He did not know, he had forgotten what he had run away 
from. When his wife reminded him, he burst out laughing. 
"Such a lot of fuss about a birthday. But don't forget what I 
told you.** And he put down the receiver. 

When his wife arrived in the afternoon, her arms filled 
with gifts, he looked at her with astonishment. He had again 
forgotten the morning's conversation. He was wearing his 
oldest suit. "How did you manage to find it?** groaned Elsa. 
"I had hidden it so well to prevent you from putting it on 
again!** 

"Ah, I know all about these hiding places!** Einstein re- 

163 



plied triumphantly. Elsa pointed accusingly at a tear in the 
side. "The people who come to see me don't come to look at 
my suit/' Einstein declared peremptorily. 

He was very much amused when his wife told him, with 
her gift for description, of the excitement she had had to face 
alone. He was enjoying the cakes. Early spring was in the 
air. He listened as if the story concerned someone else. He 
was pleased, but not because his vanity was satisfied. He 
seemed surprised by the incongruity of the interest mani- 
fested in him and the futility of the occasion, as if he were 
listening to a jester's bells in the fragrant sunny air. It was in 
the same gay spirit that he composed the verses on the fol- 
lowing page for those who had congratulated him. 

The climax prepared for the anniversary ended, however, 
in a pathetic comedy. The municipality of Berlin wanted to 
show itself as generous as the atmosphere of the celebration 
demanded. It was known that one of Einstein's passions was 
sailing and that he escaped from town at every opportunity. 
It was also known that his favorite lakes were the Havelsees, 
which stretch sinuously between flat shores and sparse pine 
forests rising from a sandy soil, like a softly dimmed silver 
mirror under a milky sky. Berlin thought it could not do bet- 
ter than give him a villa situated in a park by the lake. But 
they had forgotten which was strange for so conscientious a 
bureaucracy as the German one that the inhabitants of the 
villa, which belonged to the city of Berlin, had been prom- 
ised it for life. Slightly disconcerted, the municipal coun- 
cilors offered Einstein a site in the same park. Under these 
circumstances, he would have to build a house himself. He 
discussed the matter with Elsa. She knew how much he 
wanted to live in the country. A part of their savings could 

- 164 




H4**Cc.^c-*-*v --vw ?*. o^L*c. 

y^-^c-o^S^* 



^lAU *6^t *-4^-^^ 
*^*- * tfdc^t. /*--/ *i^est. 



*&*-*' 




Today it seems that all have tried 
To show me their most pleasant side; 
Friends from far and near have sent, 
In touching words, their compliment. 
On my undeserving head 
Gifts they pour, unwarranted 
Every single thing they can 
Think of for an aging man. 
With joyful note they make their way 



To greet me on this festive day. 
Would-be spongers one can see 
Singing songs of praise to me; 
Lauded, esteemed as ne*er before, 
On eagle's wings my spirits soar. 
Now as the day draws to an end, 
I send my thanks to every friend; 
The sun sets on a perfect day 
Remarkable in every way. 



be spent on that: they would build an unpretentious house. 
They consulted an architect They stressed the fact that they 
wanted it unpretentious. The estimate seemed satisfactory, 
the plans appealed to their simple tastes. They were already 
imagining themselves living in the house. But the municipal- 
ity had promised more than it could do. Sabotage on the part 
of the small officials continued. The park had also been re- 
served for the exclusive use of tibe Inhabitants of the villa. A 
third site was offered to Einstein. But at the moment when 
the agreement was going to be signed, it transpired that the 
deeds to the Berlin municipal property were not at all secure. 
News of the ridiculous situation spread outside Germany. 
The foreign newspapers commented on the vicissitudes of 
the gift. The municipality now offered to buy any site that 
might strike Einstein's fancy. Elsa undertook to look for it 
She had such a deep knowledge of her husband that she 
would know exactly what degree of solitude, what combina- 
tion of water and forest would be to his taste. On returning 
from one of her explorations she had fallen in love with a site 
in the village of Caputh. There was a mail bus that ran from 
the village to Potsdam, from which there was good train 
service to Berlin. Einstein never contemplated, of course, 
having a car. Elsa's description was so enthusiastic and vivid 
that the forest already rose behind the plans on paper and 
they both could see themselves breathing air in which the 
scent of pine trees mixed with that of the water. 

But they were to face another disappointment. At a meet- 
ing of the municipal council, a future Nazi questioned 
whether it was opportune to make this offer to Einstein. The 
debate was threatening to become stormy. Einstein's pa- 
tience had come to an end. He had no suspicion yet that just 

167 



as he was planning to grow deeper roots in the German soil 
the ground was opening under his feet. He who had for so 
long had a sense of the precariousness of life ought to have 
drawn the appropriate conclusions from the warning he had 
received. But all he felt was anger. He wrote a letter to the 
mayor, one of those brief and incisive letters dictated by 
temper, refusing all gifts. Albert and Elsa had decided, 
moved by the same indignant impulse and already absorbed 
in their dream, to buy the site themselves. They discussed the 
matter at length with the architect, in the hope of bringing 
down his estimate to the strict Tnirrimmn. All their savings 
would be swallowed by it, but they believed they had 
reached the very heart of paradise. 

You had only to see Einstein in a small sailboat to realize 
the strength of the roots that bound him to a simple open-air 
life. Wearing sandals and an old sweater, his hair ruffling in 
the breeze, he would stand upright rocking gently with the 
motion of the boat, completely at one with the sail he was 
maneuvering. The sun in his eyes and the wind on his cheeks 
made him screw up his face, and as he tugged at the sail, 
with his muscles protruding like cables, he shouted some- 
thing at us which the wind carried away. He looked Ithe com- 
plete pagan he might have belonged to the age of the sea 
gods or pirates. At such moments he looked like anything in 
the world but a scientist. He was absurdly happy as soon as 
he reached the water. 

Caputh was not easy to reach. The train journey was 
quick, but the mail bus was infrequent It left the passengers 
at the beginning of the village, and the village was so sleepy, 
deserted by day, dark at night, that it didn't seem to have 
ever heard of any methods of travel There was quite a dis- 

168 



tance to be covered on foot. The road was bad, stony, and 
full of ruts, like the bed of a stream. Even on dry days one 
could not help stumbling. The villa was called Landhaus 
Einstein. It was not truly a villa, but a bungalow of the most 
modest sort, a plain cube attached to another, lower one, 
with a terrace on the top. The whole thing was as simple as a 
mathematical formula. It was just the sort of house you 
would have expected them to have. 

In October 1929 the building was not quite finished. Ein- 
stein had sent me very precise instructions for a visit which 
were, in fact, rather complicated. "You must get up very 
early,** he underlined. Having read this letter, I decided with 
the friend who was to accompany me to take a car. The 
house rose in front of us, incongruously modern at the edge 
of this Brandenburg village, in which the other villas bore the 
usual signs of resort architecture. A bare interior harmonized 
with the exterior cube, plain but for the faintly protruding 
white window frames. The large living room was lined with 
the cheap, smooth wood that is used for blinds, and the house 
smelled of fresh wood, like a sawmill The large room had the 
temporary feeling of a mountain chalet where one camps for 
a night. But in the middle of the room arose an incongruous 
Japanese wooden sculpture, an exquisite piece of work, mi- 
nutely detailed as an ivory sculpture, a bibelot for giants. 
The naked walls enhanced its richness: it looked like a Gothic 
portico attached to a steel construction. This work of art had 
been given to Einstein by an eccentric admirer who probably 
imagined that the scientist lived in a castle. There was no 
room for it in his bourgeois apartment. At Caputh it seemed 
even more out of place. It clashed with the dry landscape 
around, the rickety trees of the garden, the sparse group of 
pine trees, the poor light. But the surprise soon wore off. 



Elsa was gaily fussing around us as though this solitude in 
which she lived with her husband had given her a second 
youth. The friend who accompanied me came from the same 
town as she did, Hechingen in Swabia. In honor of the 
"home town," she had provided Swabian dishes, fried liver 
pasties with small egg noodles, called in the broad dialect of 
the country Tittle sparrows/* She was an excellent cook and 
Albert particularly appreciated this heavy bourgeois cuisine 
of South Germany that produces fat and placid people. 

I remember this first day spent at Caputh like a ray of 
light in a sky in which clouds were gathering. The friend 
who had come with me, a Socialist deputy of the Reichstag, 
was aware of the threatening storm. He ought to have been 
reassured by the recent German elections that had brought 
his own party to powe^ but in the course of the summer, in 
answer to a letter in which I urged hum to come to see me 
in Paris, he replied: *lt is quite possible that I will come to 
France. I can even foresee that I may settle down there per- 
manently when a menagerie for wild animals is firmly estab- 
lished on the other side of the Rhine." The humor of this 
remark struck me at the time even more than the startling 
prophecy. We spoke of it during that visit to Caputh. We dis- 
cussed at length the causes of the uneasiness that had spread 
over Germany, the phenomenon of the evil that was to cor- 
lode it, the failure of international efforts to establish peace. 
But we were rather like children who tell each other ghost 
stories, without succeeding in frightening anyone because 
nobody really believed in them. Perhaps we were simply too 
happy to be all together there. In the presence of her ''com- 
patriot" Elsa recovered the thick Swabian accent and all her 
talents as a comedian. Einstein, shaking with laughter, bent 

170 - 



forward, his hands resting on his knees; his obvious jaie de 
vivre went to our heads like wine. When we left the house, 
still visible for a long time at the turning of the road, ap- 
peared to us like a lighted haven against the dark Branden- 
burg night, a harbor of peace. But beside me, our friend was 
murmuring, as though speaking to himself: "It has been writ- 
ten: 'Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed . . . but all 
your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days 
in the land where ye be strangers/ " 

Albert Einstein himself was more and more disturbed 
about the international situation, and particularly concerned 
by the failure of all efforts at disarmament. "The technical 
development of our times," he wrote, "has created a problem 
of life or death for civilized humanity; to participate actively 
in the safeguarding of peace has become a question of con- 
science that a man of integrity cannot elude/* Like all those 
who believed in a mobilization of mere good will in the post- 
war years, he believed in the possibility of regulating the dif- 
ferences of the future by a tribunal of international arbitra- 
tion. He was clearheaded enough to know that this would 
mean a great change in the life of humanity, a considerable 
moral effort, and a conscious departure from deeply rooted 
traditions. "In days gone by a man became a social asset 
when he managed to liberate himself even partially from his 
personal egotism; today, he is required to overcome both a 
class egotism and a national egotism," he wrote. He was not 
a dreamer talking about the possibility of disarmament. He 
knew that it was tied to the problem of security a problem 
particularly acute for France but he also knew ( as he wrote 
to a French friend) that if disarmament did not materialize, 
nothing would prevent Germany from rearming, and then 

- 171 



"each French military slave would be faced with two Ger- 
man military slaves, which would certainly not be in France's 
interest/* 

He foresaw this eventuality all the more clearly because 
Stresemann's death left the path free for the ambitions of a 
revengeful Germany. He had often met Stresemann and, as 
he wrote later on, "no one could escape the fascination of 
his conversation, which was inspired by the consciousness of 
his high mission and by a healthy optimism.* He had seen at 
close quarters Stresemann's bitter struggle to bring about the 
Treaty of Locarno and to calm the resentment of people who 
had been defeated in the war, hurt in their pride, deprived 
of their usual prerogatives. He had also watched in Strese- 
mann the gradual discarding of the narrow-minded environ- 
ment in which this bourgeois Berliner was born, of the in- 
tellectual bourgeois atmosphere in which he had grown up, 
of the national prejudices which had been his for such a long 
time all in order to devote himself to the struggle for an 
idea. *ln my opinion," wrote Einstein, "his greatest achieve- 
ment is to have won over to a grandiose plan of European 
reconciliation large political circles whose instinct led them 
in the opposite direction.** 

When he gave this brief portrait of Stresemann the day 
after the latter's death, Einstein asked himself if these same 
circles, deprived of this great leader of men, would not now 
follow their natural instincts. On the very eve of Stresemann's 
death, Einstein had had an unpleasant personal experience. 
He could not go to Geneva for a session of the Committee of 
Intellectual Co-operation. He had suggested in his place a 
man of great culture, a convinced cosmopolitan and good 
democrat, Count Kessler. But the year before, when he was 

172 



ill > he had been replaced by the director of the Prussian State 

Library, Dr. K , who from then on acquired a reputation 

as an expert on international affairs. At first sight, K had 

nothing of the high Prussian official about him: he was jovial, 
even obsequious on occasion, and as his wife was English, he 
often spoke of his close ties with foreign lands. His ambition 
was to play an important part on the Geneva scene; it was an 
ambition he cherished both for himself and for Germany, to 
the detriment of the Institute established in Paris. One of his 
first interventions, though politely made, showed his mistrust 
of French influence. Contact between the Institute and the 
Committee would be difficult to establish, he said, the dis- 
tance being too great between Geneva and Paris. There was 
also a general feeling, he added, that it would be difficult to 
maintain the international character of the Institute, since 
the intellectual atmosphere of the country where the Insti- 
tute was located had an extremely pronounced personal char- 
acter. 

Several years before this, Einstein himself had expressed 
the fear that French preponderance might arouse suspicion 
as to the absolute objectivity of an international organization. 
But times had changed there had been Locarno and Thoiry 
and Einstein had seen the Institute at work. He had never 
doubted the perfect good will of his French friends, like 
Painleve and Madame Curie. Moreover, the intellectual 
atmosphere of Paris had never seemed to Tifm to introduce 
any special danger through a too pronounced national char- 
acter. The maneuver of his successor sounded like a disfig- 
ured echo of his own words, a caricature of his ideas. It 
irritated frfrn profoundly, though he did not yet see what it 
was aiming at. The plausibility of the man was disturbing. **I 

- 173 - 



have no confidence in him, 1 * lie kept repeating. He intervened 
in order to prevent his nomination for the 1929 session, but 
came up against the opposition of the bureaucrats of the 
Wilhelmstrasse, who, knowing that Stresemann was dying, 
were already following the new trend of affairs. Einstein was 

terribly upset. He feared that Dr. K might be taken as 

the mouthpiece of his ideas. He went so far as to write a con- 
fidential letter to Painlev6 to warn him about his "stand-in/* 

But when Dr. K came to Geneva, this letter, which was 

to have remained very secret, was, either out of carelessness 
or malice, passed on to him by one of the French members 
of the Committee. The fifth column was already at work. 

Eleven years kter, Dr. K appeared in Paris as a repre- 
sentative of a victorious Germany. He laid claim to the Li- 
brary of Strasbourg. Vichy immediately agreed to his de- 
mand. But the professors of the University of Strasbourg, 
now moved to Clermont-Ferrand, which was to become a 
center of the Resistance, objected, saying that such a measure 
was more a matter for a peace treaty than for an armistice. 

Dr. K insisted. He had a great knowledge of French 

treasures. He threatened in the event that his demand was 
not met to help himself to the Bibliotheque Nationale. It 
was said later that he also sent a few trucks one day to the 
Library of Sainte Genevieve to remove books and treasures. 
He finally took possession of the Strasbourg Library, whose 
librarian, Serge Fischer, tried to save the most valuable vol- 
umes by taking them away himself in suitcases and sacks 
across the snowbound countryside. But Privy Councilor 

K had a full inventory of it and he had the Gestapo at 

his disposal. He had risen very high under the Nazi rule. He 
claimed all that was due him. His sinister shadow haunted 

174 



the world he knew so well Julien Cain, director of the Biblio- 
theque Nationale, a wounded veteran, was arrested in Paris 
and later on deported to Buchenwald, where he met Serge 
Fischer. 

K was received in Berlin with great honor. 

As international problems became more acute, the impo- 
tence of the League became more apparent. The interna- 
tional organization continued to exist as though by the force 
of inertia of the enormous bureaucratic apparatus that it had 
set in movement. The escape from reality, the cautiousness 
of the speeches, the halfway resolutions, the reams of paper 
that this gigantic machine continued to emit, created an 
opaque, artificial fog around it The air became insufferable. 
"Geneva, what a remarkable extinguisher,** Briand sighed, 
spreading his arms in a helpless gesture. One of the most 
intelligent officials of the League told an incorrigible idealist: 
Tn order even to get as far as the committees, problems have 
to be smooth and round as billiard balls.** And Einstein him- 
self remarked: "There is a type of conciliatory attitude that 
is a crime against humanity and they are trying to pretend 
that it is political wisdom.** 

Political wisdom was indeed made the god of the day by 
the conciliators of Geneva. They were easily satisfied with 
themselves. They calmed down impatience as best they 
could. "Ten years have passed since the armistice, without a 
war is that not already a great change?** Gilbert Murray, the 
chairman of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation, de- 
clared contentedly, with that British frankness which, ac- 
cording to a prominent English journalist, had taken as a 
motto: "Give the wolf a chance and play fair with the rattle- 
snake." 

- 175 



In this year, 1929, the cornerstone was laid for the Palace 
of the League, which was, in fact, to be its mausoleum. Ein- 
stein suggested that the following words should be engraved 
at the entrance: "I support the strong and reduce the weak 
to silence, without bloodshed.** 

At the plenary session which took place in August 1930, 
Einstein attended in person to support a proposal that was 
close to his heart. Painleve had broached the subject of pri- 
mary education, though he knew better than anyone how 
much it irritated both national and party susceptibilities. He 
knew that this question dominated everything else. **The 
Committee will not fulfill the hopes of public opinion unless 
it takes an interest in this problem," he said. Madame Curie 
supported him with her usual vigor. The reason why this 
problem did not figure in the program of the Institute was 
because it had been formally banned at the start: the Com- 
mittee was not allowed to interfere in matters which, in cer- 
tain countries, depended on government decisions. 

Einstein knew that the Committee was being put to the 
decisive test in this battle which he had launched with his 
French friends. A new program of action had just been 
planned, but when he examined it, Einstein exclaimed in his 
usual vivid language: *1 feel as if I were looking at a house on 
fire where people were trying to save the furniture but 
weren't taking the trouble to choose the most valuable 
pieces." He was also aware that in fact the "problem in ques- 
tion, put simply, means that education should be, generally 
speaking, considered as a method of keeping the peace.** Be- 
fore coming to Geneva he had taken care to study the ques- 
tion, to sound out opinion in different countries, and he be- 
lieved that the Committee could go ahead, "without fear and 

176 



without waiting to be stopped, if stopped it should be. In 
any case it should not stop at the very start.** He concluded 
by saying that the problem was the most important of all 
those to be examined and if success could be obtained on this 
point a task of great importance would already have been 
achieved. 

In fact this problem became the stumbling block of two 
worlds. The Italian member of the Committee, Rocco, who 
was at the same time the Fascist minister of the meager and 
expeditious justice of his country, harshly opposed the pro- 
posal in the name of all totalitarian states, present and future. 
He thought the eventual establishment of an international 
authority was inconceivable. The question, he said, had noth- 
ing to do with intellectual or international co-operation it 
belonged to the individual competence of each country. 
"Universities, perhaps,** he added, ready to make concessions 
on this point, since it would affect men in whom, he thought, 
one could by then have confidence, men already ensnared 
by the regime. Youth, on the other hand, was the valuable 
malleable material which allowed nations to be led astray, 
and Rocco defended it against this pacifism which was to be 
inculcated into it with all the energy and indignation ex- 
pected from him by his government. *The danger in broach- 
ing such a subject is explained by the fact that the education 
of a child is considered as one of the fundamental attributes 
of state sovereignty." The Committee, according to "him, 
ought to busy itself with problems that presented less diffi- 
culty at the moment and abstain from touching upon reli- 
gious, moral, and political questions. As this was Geneva and 
he wished to appease the unrest he felt to be spreading, he 
added, by way of consolation, that the time for those latter 

- 177 



problems would come in fifteen, twenty, or fifty years. "The 
League has all the future it wants in front of it" and the 
gravedigger of the League smiled amiably around him. Ein- 
stein, red with anger, pulled fiercely at his extinguished pipe. 
Painleve returned to the attack. Intellectual co-operation had 
been defined from the beginning as one of the most efficient 
methods of bringing about the mutual understanding of 
peoples. Primary education, he said, was at the moment of 
the greatest importance. "Universities," he replied to Rocco, 
"already had at their disposal a considerable number of inter- 
national organizations. But in France at least primary educa- 
tion was the only education received by a great majority of 
children. Therefore the character given to this education 
would have the greatest influence on the pacific or aggressive 
development of modern civilization.** The warning was clear. 
However, this assembly in Geneva did not consist only of an 
impetuous Fascist without any international prestige on one 
side and three of the greatest scientists of the world on the 
other. If it had, the battle would have been unequal and 
might have been won without more ado. But pressure was 
exercised upon the majority of the Committee, pressure from 
men with more or less suppressed Fascist sympathies, from 
politicians used to the Geneva scene and wanting to avoid a 
break at any price, from disappointed liberals to whom insti- 
tutions meant more than a cause. The great tragedy of the 
League unrolled itself, in smaller doses, at the meetings of 
the Committee. 

Another question was raised at this session, "full of the 
approaching storm,'* as Painleve called it, that of "coexistence 
on the same territory of populations belonging to different 
civilizations.'* The agenda submitted to the session defined it 

- 178 



as: "Intellectual problems outside of Europe." It was in par- 
ticular the future Asiatic caldron that was in question and 
there was still a tendency to deny its state of fermentation* 
But the same problem of coexistence, remarked Einstein, 
affected the ethnic minorities of European peoples and con- 
stituted "one of the most serious aspects of the state of affairs 
which is currently poisoning European relations." Like the 
problem of primary education, this one of the cultural inde- 
pendence of ethnic minorities was to be swallowed up by 
subcommittees "for more careful examination"; they were 
both to be milled so fine in passing through the various ma- 
chines designed for this purpose that there would be nothing 
left of them but dust. 

Though the permanent members of the Committee were 
elected on their personal merits and independently of their 
governments, topical matters reached the Committee only 
after having been filtered through national committees 
which, in many countries, represented only an official atti- 
tude* Einstein left Geneva in disgust. He decided to hand in 
his resignation. He wrote a letter to an Undersecretary of the 
League, director of the section of Intellectual Co-operation. 
This post had, by process of rotation, fallen to a German 
diplomat. This diplomat, descendant of Huguenot refugees, 
bore a French name. But, like so many people who are 
troubled by their own origin, he was a nationalist, ill at ease 
in an international atmosphere. He had taken care not to 
interfere in the debate, in his determination to be discreet, 
but he was definitely on the side of the "extinguishers.** 

Albert Einstein wished to give a precise, detailed explana- 
tion of the reasons for his withdrawaL "Experience has un- 
fortunately revealed to me that the Committee has no serious 

179 - 



desire to bring about any tangible improvement in interna- 
tional relations. It seems to me rather an incarnation of the 
principle of ut atiquid -fieri victeatur. From this point of view 
the Committee appears to be on the whole even worse than 
the League." He numbered his grievances: "The Committee 
has given its blessing to the suppression of cultural minori- 
ties in some countries by creating one 'national committee/ 
one official link between the intellectuals of that country and 
the Committee. It has also of its own accord renounced the 
duty of serving as support to national minorities against all 
cultural oppression." Recalling the recent debate, Einstein 
expressed his indignation that "in the struggle against chau- 
vinistic and militaristic tendencies manifested in some coun- 
tries, the Committee has taken so lukewarm an attitude that 
one cannot expect any serious effort from it in this most im- 
portant of all spheres.** He also reproached the Committee 
for never having supported the individuals or associations 
who had undertaken independently the task of working for a 
legal international order and against the military system. The 
indignation arising from his encounters with Rocco was still 
alive in him when he stated that the Committee had not re- 
fused to admit among its members men whom it knew to 
represent other tendencies than those it was its duty to repre- 
sent. He concluded: "If I had any hope left, I can assure you 
that I would not have taken this step." With these sad and 
disappointed words, Einstein's participation in the work of 
the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation came to an end. 
The failure of a hope was for Trim only the beginning of the 
failures which human aspirations toward a cultural unity 
were to undergo. He wrote later: "As far back as the seven- 
teenth century, the scientists and artists of the whole of 

- 180 - 



Europe were so closely united by a common ideal that tibeir 
cooperation was scarcely influenced by political events . . * 
today we look back upon such a situation as upon a lost para- 
dise. Nationalist passions have destroyed the community of 
spirit and Latin, the language that formerly served to unite 
all, is dead. Scientists, having become the strongest repre- 
sentatives of national tradition, have lost their solidarity." 



181 



Chapter X 



THREE great powers reign over the world: stupidity, fear, 
and greed. This was the conviction Einstein had reached 
after repeated disappointments. But he also wrote: **We can- 
not despair of humanity, since we are only human ourselves. 9 * 
And as he expected nothing more from the wisdom of the 
governing classes, from the courage of international assem- 
blies, he addressed himself to men directly: to the pacifists of 
all the world, to the students, and to the masses. The years to 
come were to be chiefly occupied by his struggle for peace, a 
struggle to which he surrendered himself entirely. His paci- 
fism was deep-rooted; it was the first conscious reaction of an 
adolescent abandoning his nationality. His invectives against 
the militarism he loathed rang with passion "the worst mon- 
ster born of the gregarious instinct/* In one of his "confes- 
sions,** to which he gave, in 1930, the title of The World as I 
See It, Albert Einstein wrote: "Anyone who can take pleas- 
ure in march ing in formation to the strains of a band is once 
and for all an object of contempt to me; his great brain has 

183 



been given to him by mistake, a backbone was all he needed. 
This shame on civilization should be obliterated as soon as 
possible. Heroism by order, insane violence, vainglorious 
patriotism; how intensely I hate them, how despicable and 
mean war is to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than 
take part in such a revolting business." 

Einstein did not arrive at this belief in pacifism through 
any process of reasoning, perhaps not even through compas- 
sion for human suffering. The horror of war lived in him and 
burned in his blood with the force of an elemental emotion. 
In the ordered universe of thought that he had built, there 
was no room for war. In his private religious world it was an 
offense to his deep faith in man, the archenemy of everything 
immortal in creation. 

The struggle against war is the main principle of Einstein's 
life. The struggle for peace has the same importance for "hfm 
as his scientific achievements. Much of what he does is only 
understandable in the harsh light of his hatred for war and 
his love of peace. He now reached what he called active paci- 
fism: "A pacifism that does not actively oppose the rearma- 
ment of nations is and will remain impotent." He threw him- 
self into a crusade in favor of conscientious objectors. He 
believed that if in every country only a small part of those 
who were called to fight refused to be conscripted, an irre- 
sistible movement would spring up throughout the world. He 
threw himself into the battle with all the prestige of his 
name, addressed numerous appeals to friends in all countries, 
mounted the platforms which he had always avoided, spoke 
to students, took part in large demonstrations, launched ar- 
ticles in newspapers, and wrote letters on the eve of disarma- 
ment conferences. 

- 184 



His efforts were based on the calculation that if only two 
per cent of the men called up would refuse to join the ranks 
there would never be a war. In fact a movement in that di- 
rection began to spread and this figure of two per cent be- 
came something of an insigne. Einstein himself led this 
"Internationale of objectors to war." He launched a per- 
sonal appeal to all potential soldiers, asking them to declare 
that they would refuse to serve the cause of war or prepara- 
tions for war. "I asked them to notify their governments in 
writing, and put this decision on record by informing me that 
they have taken it. I have authorized the inauguration of an 
international fund for those opposed to war, the Einstein 
Fund." He himself supplied this Fund with considerable 
sums which he obtained by accepting for this cause the per- 
sonal offers he had always hitherto refused. This active cam- 
paign threatened the leisure he needed for his work. His per- 
sonal life, so fiercely protected against all intrusion from 
outside, was now invaded by an unusual animation. He 
received emissaries from all countries, militant pacifists from 
all parties, idealists ready to sacrifice everything for a cause, 
men of experience and unrepentant dreamers. 

In the place of inventors suffering from mythomania, in 
place of the misunderstood geniuses who used to storm his 
door, it was now cranks who besieged him with their pana- 
ceas for universal peace. He was not even beyond the reach 
of madmen and maniacs, for, spurred on by the sense of an 
impending menace, he was ready to use everything and 
everyone, **One never knows from where the spark might 
come,** he replied to those who reproached him for wasting 
his time. But he had not many illusions about the efficacy of 
the forces he had thrown into battle. He replied one day to a 

185 



letter suggesting nationalization of the armament industry 
and expressing the hope that Einstein's intervention would 
result in its success. ""The armament industry is, indeed, one 
of the great threats to humanity." Nationalization might 
avert the danger. But Einstein foresaw the innumerable ob- 
stacles and did not share his correspondent's optimism about 
his own intervention. ""You believe that a word from me 
would help to achieve something in this direction? What an 
illusion! People flatter me as long as I do not embarrass them. 
If I make suggestions that embarrass them they immediately 
resort to insults and calumny in order to defend their inter- 
ests. And those who have no interests side with those who 
have out of sheer cowardice." 

Einstein's lack of illusions about the weight of his name 
must never be underestimated: his perseverance in his 
struggle in spite of this revealed the powerful impulse that 
forced Trim to action in spite of everything and everybody, 
and with only a faint hope of success. 

The need for action, however, seemed to Trim more and 
more obvious. It became increasingly important to proceed, 
for he saw the restlessness that was rapidly spreading in Ger- 
many and intensifying the threat to peace. 

The world economic crisis had sensational repercussions in 
Germany. The transition from prosperity to a critical eco- 
nomic situation was abrupt It came almost overnight; but its 
repercussions were visible only gradually, as though ways of 
thought were slower to establish themselves than economic 
realities. The report of the American expert on the Repara- 
tion Commission, Parker Gilbert (published, i I am not mis- 
taken, toward the end of 1928), still drew extremely optimis- 
tic conclusions on Germany's economic and financial capacity, 

186 - 



surprised admiration in the face of the German miracle. This 
miracle was, in fact, imaginary. Germany, thrown into a 
dizzy whirlwind, into an economic expansion that made one 
gasp for breath, was building tremendous highways, renovat- 
ing all its industrial equipment, increasing its means of pro- 
duction. Every German town was erecting luxurious town 
halls, all too vast sports grounds, all too sumptuous hotels 
for the modest visitors in transit. This revival was condi- 
tioned by American loans; loans to the state, to the munici- 
palities, to industrialists, to any bold enterprise. America had 
discovered in Germany a most profitable ground for invest- 
ment. American money seemed to be chasing after every 
German, an irresistible temptation to even the most cautious 
and conservative* At the moment when this flow began to 
ebb, when the loans were reclaimed after the American 
slump, this artificial prosperity crumbled like a house of 
cards. Suddenly everything seemed to have gone wrong. 
Germany was suffering from the counterblow of the world 
crisis so acutely because she had ventured further than the 
others in her faith in an unlimited progress. But the dismay 
was general. Everything that seemed to promise a better 
future, all the great conquests of the inventive spirit and the 
solid virtues of labor, had succeeded only in leading human- 
ity to disaster. "Today, everything that has been acquired 
with such effort seems in the hands of our generation like a 
razor in the hands of a child of three," wrote Einstein. 

With the sharp and rather unexpected interest he showed 
in economic matters, he examined the problems of the world 
crisis. He not only discussed it with economists, financiers, 
politicians, but also wrote articles and addressed public 
meetings. He found in the chaos that reigns among experts 

187 



the justification for his interference in an unfamiliar domain. 
He discerned in the present crisis an element that lent it a 
new character and made it differ from other cyclic crises: the 
rapid progress in methods of production which allowed the 
indispensable needs of consumers to be satisfied, while en- 
gaging only an infinitesimal fraction of the available labor. 
It soon became a vicious circle. Unemployment lowered the 
buying capacity, the impossibility of absorbing the commodi- 
ties led to a stoppage of production, increased unemploy- 
ment, and restricted production even more. Einstein exam- 
ined one by one the principal arguments raised by experts 
to explain the crisis. "Overproduction? 7 * he wrote. "This can, 
I suppose, be applied to motorcars and American corn; as for 
the rest, overproduction is only an apparent cause, for it is 
not the need that is lacking among the consumers but the 
buying capacity. Reparations? They obviously weigh on the 
debtor countries and force them to dump their exports, which 
also affects the creditor countries. But the fact that the same 
crisis is taking place in the U.S. weakens this argument." 
After going into all the other alleged reasons and demon- 
strating their futile nature, Einstein reached the conclusion 
that a directed economy was logically the simplest method of 
remedying the evil that scourges the world. Being in advance 
of his time, he did not conceal the risks of the measure he 
proposed, or the resistance that it was sure to encounter. He 
asked at the least for the control of free economy by three 
methods: through the reduction of working hours, to allevi- 
ate the scourge of unemployment; through the establishment 
of minimum salaries to prevent the fall in buying capacity; 
and through state control of prices. 
The egotism o private interests appeared to Einstein more 

- 188 - 



and more clearly as one of the principal factors responsible 
for the present ills and the future disasters. Like many others 
who foresaw the worst with a secret hope that it would not 
materialize, he was deeply shattered by the first sign of the 
defiance of international ethics the Japanese occupation of 
Manchukuo. He knew the League to be impotent but did not 
believe it so ready to capitulate. Could not the United States, 
which had remained outside the League, and was so power- 
ful economically, play a pacifying role? He asked an Ameri- 
can diplomat why an economic boycott was not applied to 
Japan to prevent that country from continuing its policy of 
aggression. The American shrugged his shoulders resignedly 
and replied frankly: **Our commercial interests are too 
strong. 

**What can one do with people who agree with such state- 
ments?" Einstein added when repeating this conversation. 

Now the road was wide open to arbitrary violence. At the 
end of this road, which began at the moment when civilized 
humanity was still in full possession of its means of defense, 
came Pearl Harbor, 

In Germany itself, Einstein saw looming ahead a danger 
to which most observers were still blind. The sudden halt 
in production and the eclipse of prosperity hit the young 
most of all. Einstein saw the havoc this wrought in universi- 
ties. Students proceeded with their studies without any hope 
of being able in future to apply their knowledge in any way 
or to find even the most modest means of making a living. 
Many of them had severed all links with their original, often 
humble, environments and had gained their independence at 
the price of personal and family sacrifices. Now they found 
themselves with their pride in possible success and their am- 

189 



bitions frustrated. They had become outcasts of society, with- 
out roots, and they were searching for a scapegoat. 

A macabre joke circulated in Berlin at the time to illustrate 
the distress that reigned in university circles. Four hungry 
students drew lots to decide which of them was to sacrifice 
himself and commit suicide to allow his friends to survive, 
Two of them took the corpse to the morgue with the idea of 
selling it to the medical faculty. After a time the friend who 
had remained on the watch saw them return, dumfounded, 
carrying the corpse on their backs. ""They had no use for it. 
Now they only take full-fledged doctors with diplomas." 

Anxiety about their survival weakened the moral fiber of 
the young and made them ready for any adventure so long 
as it gave them hope. Einstein said later on: "Nazism was 
born on an empty stomach.** Industry and commerce, which 
were as overcrowded as the liberal professions, were also 
closed to the young. "Hopeless!" This word was itself the 
negation of everything that was young: it was a challenge 
to the right to live. The title of a book in which Hans Fallada 
described vividly this daily distress became the cry of alarm 
on every lip: Little Man, What Now? 

A journey to the United States allowed Einstein to inten- 
sify his struggle for peace as well as his campaign for con- 
scientious objectors. It was ten years since he had been there. 
Tliis time he did not go to ask material help for a cause, as 
on his preceding journey. The mission he had undertaken 
was to stir slumbering consciences. But in fact it was as a 
scientist that he was invited by the California Institute of 
Technology and Mount Wilson Observatory, where his 
theory of fields was to be experimentally checked. 

His departure was fixed for the end of the year. Einstein 

* 190 



lingered on in Caputh, liis favorite refuge, his safest escape 
when distress followed him too closely. He refused to go to 
Berlin, even when the autumn brought its rains and winter 
approached. He had, however, much to do in town, and 
when the Einsteins both spent the day there they used to 
return to the country in the dead of night, always without a 
car. "It looks so unpleasant and inhospitable in the dark,** 
complained Elsa. But she consented to these late returns 
(although even when helped along by the strong hand of her 
husband the uneven road seemed to her haunted with ter- 
rors) because she saw Einstein throw oflE all his worries and 
troubles as soon as the acrid smell of the wet soil reached 
him. He returned to this brand-new house like a traveler 
rediscovering his old home. 

Their absence was to last the whole winter. Each depar- 
ture was a wrench for Elsa, because of the separation from 
her daughters. Her thoughts kept returning to them for a 
long time; she worried about every detail of their personal 
lives, about lisa's precarious health and Margot's acutely 
sensitive nature. Generally so communicative, she concealed 
her troubles when she saw her husband enjoying every mo- 
ment of the relaxation provided by the crossing. They went 
to California by way of New York and Havana. 

The calm that lulled him during the long voyage did not, 
however, soften his pugnacious spirit. From the boat he sent 
a message of greeting to the United States which was, in fact, 
a challenge to the intellectual forces of the country. "On the 
eve of landing,*" he cabled, "one idea only occupies my mind, 
or rather only one hope: that the forces that work under the 
surface in the country should come out into the open in order 
more effectively to fight against professional militarism, dart- 

191 



gerous and strong as it is.** He knew where the principal 
enemies of the great desire for peace were to be found. He 
did not hesitate to chastise them in one of his addresses: *1 
have still enough faith in humanity to believe that these 
ghosts would have disappeared long ago had the common 
sense of nations not been systematically corrupted by com- 
mercial and political interests through education and the 
press." 

He pursued his activities against the idyllic Californian 
background, and though the young responded to it, some of 
his colleagues were still so far away from everything that 
disturbed Europe that his propoganda seemed like the idee 
fixe of an idealist just slightly less harmless than his bohe- 
mian love of music. 

However, his fame was so great that any eccentricity was 
forgiven him. Examples of his widespread fame ranged from 
the ridiculous to the touching. In gratitude for "a life devoted 
to the service of humanity," an Einstein medal for humani- 
tarianism was struck off, which was to be bestowed every 
year upon an American who, like Einstein, had devoted him- 
self to the good of humanity. But he was also asked to give 
his old shoes to be exhibited together with those worn by 
Hollywood stars and candidates for the presidency of the 
United States. . . . 

The most striking proof of his prestige was given when he 
went to New York. That city, though swarming with various 
nationalities and religions, had remained, in spite of its 
adoration of success and material values, rigorously loyal to 
religious rites. At the time when the Riverside Church was 
being built, its learned pastor decided to have the fagade 
decorated so that it should be a lesson to the faithful, a lesson 

* 192 



in facts. In imitation of the churches of the Middle Ages, it 
was decorated with several hundred figures, but instead of 
the exuberance of Roman and Gothic fagades, the statues 
followed one another and the bas-relief ran like the stills of a 
film. Saints, kings, philosophers, precursors of Christ, and 
others were lined up in order. In this abridged encyclopedia 
in stone, the pastor, born in a country where the cult of the 
inventive spirit stood very high, wanted to include fourteen 
of the greatest scientists of the world. In order to choose the 
immortals wisely he turned to the most eminent scientists of 
America. In the lists that they compiled, certain names like 
Archimedes, Euclid, Galileo, and Newton figured invariably. 
But on every list was also found the name of Einstein. On 
the bas-relief of the scientists he is the only one still living. 
He must be the first living man since the end of the Middle 
Ages to be able to gaze at himself on the front of a church. 

The minister himself wished to show Einstein his effigy in 

o/ 

stone. Einstein searched for it with an air of surprise and 
finally discovered the very conventional image. The moment 
would have been a solemn one even for the most illustrious 
of beings. But his sense of humor had the upper hand. He 
burst into laughter and, winking at himself over the portico, 
turned to the pastor, who was slightly disconcerted by this 
unexpected gaiety: "I might have imagined that they could 
make a Jewish saint out of me, but I never thought I'd be- 
come a Protestant one!" 

On his return to Berlin Einstein found that the economic 
crisis had increased, with all its political repercussions. He 
was personally affected by the distress that reigned in the 
country. Their family, especially Elsa's close relations, had 
fallen into almost complete penuiy. They had, most of them, 

* 198 - 



been immensely rich,** wrote Elsa, "but at the moment they 
are almost incapable of resuming the struggle for a living; 
the older ones in any case. 7 * 

These people whose lives had been warped, these old 
women who were unable to understand what had happened 
to them, came to pour out their sorrows in the Haberland- 
strasse. The younger people, with the defenselessness o 
charming and spoiled children,, besieged their famous uncle 
and expected some impossible miracle from him. Einstein 
made great financial sacrifices to relieve their .immediate 
distress. All the personal help given by Einstein and Elsa, 
sometimes without each other's knowledge, the pensions they 
secured, the education they paid for, the so-called loans they 
made that would never be paid back, amounted to a large 
sum. "Where will all this lead to?" Elsa asked anxiously. The 
poverty of her family was only a reflection of the general 
confusion, spectacular and incomprehensible. The construc- 
tive mind of Einstein could not adjust itself to such impo- 
tence of thought before so catastrophic a situation. His innate 
sense of order revolted against the muddled interpretations, 
the half measures, the provisional compromises, the selfish 
defense of private interests that only served to aggravate the 
economic sores. The human intelligence that had solved so 
many universal enigmas ought to have been able to under- 
stand where the wheels of the economic machinery had gone 
wrong and restore them to movement. "My Albert spends 
much time in thinking what could be done to improve the 
state economy," Elsa wrote, and added with the sense of 
humor she kept even at the most difficult moments: "He ex- 
plains to me, poor me, the solution that he has found for each 
problem. I am convinced each time that it is the only path to 

194 - 



take and try to persuade him to go and explain it to Luther 
or Briining. *What good would it do?* tie replies, and sinks 
back once more into his equations." 

More and more he needed to take refuge in his work to 
regain his balance. National Socialism began to win its first 
victories: and the scapegoat for the general resentment was 
found. Groups of young men rushed about the streets with a 
song of hatred on their lips: "Awaken, Germany! Death to 
the Jews!'* 

The Nazis only ventured stealthily by night into the work- 
ing quarters, where gunshots were met by gunshots, and 
knives by knives: but by day, with their swastika flags flying 
in the wind, they marched through quarters welt known to 
these sons of good families; it was in tie Bayrisches Viertel 
and the peaceful Haberlandstrasse that this angry clamor 
for Jewish blood ~which has to spurt from under the knife" 
resounded. 

In these troubled times Albert Einstein also had to undergo 
a painful personal ordeal He had always remained in dose 
touch with his sons. The elder seems to have inherited from 
his father his robust common sense and his love of practical 
things. The Swiss environment in which he grew up, his 
profession, which brought him closer to the soil (he studied 
agriculture and is now professor of engineering in a univer- 
sity in California), his position as the father of a family, had 
all contributed to make him a thoroughly balanced person. 

The younger son, with his sallow skin, his fine eyes, 
and the sensual lips of his father, inherited from him his 
interest in science and his passion for music. He came from 
time to time to Berlin and when Einstein allowed his glance 
to linger upon Trim one could read in it a great tenderness 

195 



and pride, which was rare in him. He was amused to find 
himself so vulnerable. During one of young Einstein's visits 
to the Haberlandstrasse, I once heard him play the piano in 
the next room. He had an absorbed look on his face, as 
though, like his father, he was divorced from his surround- 
ings while playing. But I also caught a glimpse in it of a far- 
away expression, irreparably sad In the bo/s relationship 
with his father there was passionate admiration mingled 
with unexpected rebellion, which was like a secret resent- 
ment. Perhaps it was an impotent gesture of revolt in reaction 
to an exaggerated idealization. His precarious state of health 
made his adolescence painful This frail body and this un- 
trained brain were full of great ambitions. Suddenly letters 
began to arrive from Switzerland, incoherent letters in which 
the desire to affirm a weak personality through grand lan- 
guage alternated with outbursts of despair; they were pa- 
thetic, unhinged letters. Einstein was deeply upset by them. 
He could not understand these figments of an overexcited 
imagination. Suddenly young Einstein's passion for his father 
turned to hatred, expressed itself in bitter recriminations and 
vehement accusations the feverish confessions of a sick 



Albert Einstein loved his younger son as much as he was 
able to love any human being. The boy's lack of mental bal- 
ance was a cruel blow for him. He suffered from it as he per- 
haps had never suffered before in his life. For a certain time 
he was, as every father would be, deeply overcome with 
grief, a grief which he tried to control. This sorrow is 
eating up Albert. He finds it difficult to cope with ft, more 
difficult thai> he would care to admit,*' wrote Elsa. "He has 
always aimed at being invulnerable to everything that con- 

- 196 - 



cerned him personally. He really is so, much more than any 
other man I know. But this has hit him very hard." 

Einstein emerged from this solitary battle with his grief 
with hardened features and eyes often obscured by shadows. 
He had remained astonishingly youthful for a long time. On 
his return from Zurich, where he went to visit his sick son, 
he seemed changed. It was not that he had grown older, but 
he had lost his broad sense of humor. He was more detached 
than ever and his serenity seemed more absolute with the 
years. The way he rose above this trial showed that the in- 
vulnerability of which Elsa spoke demanded the renunciation 
of happiness as well as suffering. 



197 



Chapter XI 



THE winter here can bring us nothing but sadness," wrote 
Elsa. "Anyway, we intend to go away for a long time (though 
we don't want to)/* Long journeys still meant a temporary 
respite for them, a screen protecting them from the stress of 
the time. At the beginning of December they sailed again 
for California. They spent the winter in Pasadena. Their 
return to Berlin coincided with what was considered to 
be a lull in Germany's race toward suicide. The hope of 
German democracy was incarnate and what an incarna- 
tion! in Hindenburg, the winner in the election for the presi- 
dency of the Republic. The old marshal refused to see Cap- 
tain von Roehm, one of Hitler's most active propagandists, 
and commented on his peculiar habits with a soldier's strong 
language. He refused to have anything to do with Hitler 
~this Czech sergeant/* he said contemptuously. Chancellor 
Briining believed he could proceed on his tortuous route, 
reassuring liberals on the one hand and on the other yielding 
now and then to what was called an irresistible national 

- 199 - 



movement. All measures of force were repellent to this 
secular monk who had strayed into politics. 

In fact the German situation could still have been saved. 
One of the high officials at the Ministry of the Interior, Dr. 
Carl Spiecker, in charge of the repression of Nazism, pro- 
posed a measure of great cunning to the Chancellor. Hitler 
was not yet a German citizen. Spiecker made out an order 
for the expulsion of the undesirable foreigner. At the same 
time he informed the Brown House of this measure through 
a counterspy. Hitler, with the spasmodic courage of a neu- 
rotic, started packing at once. Carl Spiecker, who not only 
knew his history but was also a courageous and clear-minded 
democrat, foresaw a repetition of Boulanger's flight. National 
Socialism and the Fuehrer would have been covered with 
ridicule in the same way; but Chancellor Briining, after hesi- 
tating for a time, refused to approve the order of expulsion. 
Germany remained scrupulously legal. The counterspy, by 
name George Bell, was one of the first to be shot by the Nazis 
when they came into power. Carl Spiecker, who had at- 
tempted in vain to fight the disaster, took the road to exile. 

At the very hour when Germany's destiny was being 
played out, sordid private interests helped to end any chance 
of saving the situation. National Socialism was rapidly los- 
ing ground At the elections in November 1932, it was to lose 
two million votes. It had never really gained more than thirty- 
seven per cent of the votes. But a shady maneuver called 
Osfhilfe was intended, in spite of the growing poverty of 
the country, to restore the riches of the big landowners in 
Pomerania. If Hindenburg failed to understand anything 
about this new world that offered itself to his fading glance, 
he understood very well the interests of his class, particularly 

200 



the interests of his son, who was a Pomeranian landowner. 
And the only loyalty this old man had ever known was 
to his past. Chancellor Briining, who was opposed to the 
Osthilfe, was dismissed like an indiscreet valet who had dared 
to interfere with his master's affairs. One of the authors of 
that maneuver was about to succeed him. So unexpected was 
this succession that when in the middle of the ministerial 
crisis General von Seeckt telephoned to a friend to ask him 
about the choice of the new Chancellor, he thought he was 
being made the victim of a joke: "Are you pulling my leg? 
Papen? It is not even funny." The effects of the bad joke, 
however, were only to be felt much later. Germany had a 
few months of respite. Tlie menace had still taken no definite 
shape. 

Albert Einstein was spending time in a sort of monastic 
retreat at Christ Church, Oxford. Elsa was preparing for the 
summer move to Caputh. She knew that her husband was 
in a hurry to return to the Tittle house/* as he called it, and 
to his sailboat. She too always looked forward to these 
months when she had her husband more to herself than 
anywhere else. "But this time, I feel uneasy about it," she 
wrote. *ls it wise to stay here in these troubled timeswho 
can tell? I feel very anxious at heart." 

She consoled herself with the thought that the people in 
the village were fond of them. Einstein was still a great cen- 
ter of attraction in their sleepy lives. Elsa recalled that in 
the autumn of the preceding year, on his way to Berlin, her 
husband had boarded one day, as he usually did, a third- 
class carriage on the small train. Two young men sitting 
opposite had swastikas in their buttonholes. They had recog- 
nized him, nudged each other, and started to whisper. Then, 

- 201 - 



stealthily, they had tried to remove the insignia. Elsa was 
dear-minded enough, however, to admit to herself that they 
prohably would not have done so at this time. But she also 
knew that nothing would prevent Albert Einstein from going 
home. 

I went for the last time to Caputh in May 1932. 1 had seen 
General von Seeckt the day before. He had insisted: **Warn 
all your Jewish friends that they would be well advised to 
leave Germany. Warn Einstein particularly. His life is not 
safe here any longer." 

On this bright May day these sinister forebodings seemed 
like phantoms of the night that vanish in broad daylight. 
The sky was veiled, as if the water rising off the lakes had 
clouded it, the invisible sun gleamed, and in this unreal light 
the tops of the apple trees had the transparency of white 
glass. The rare passers-by walked leisurely along the sandy 
road. The village seemed sunk in lethargy. 

I found Elsa Einstein alone in the large living room, lean- 
ing against the window sill. She had a preoccupied expres- 
sion and lackluster eyes. She was deeply upset. They had 
been visited by an American, Abraham Plexner, who, thanks 
to a large donation, had founded in Princeton the Institute 
for Advanced Study, a center for research and experimental 
study. In a book published in 1930, Universities: American, 
English, and German, Flexner had given startling examples 
of the decline in standards of university education, quoting 
for instance the thesis submitted to the University of Chicago 
on The Comparison in Time and Movement of Four 
Methods of Washing Dishes." Flexner's idea was that the 
Institute in Princeton should link up with the traditions of 
the Continent and create a real scientific community. Scien- 

202 



tists, badly paid in most American universities, were to pur- 
sue their studies there, unhampered by material need and 
without being interrupted by the preparation of lectures. At 
the same time they could form a new team of research work- 
ers among the students. "It would just suit Albert/* Elsa 
said to me. "Xo obligation to teach and at the same time the 
possibility of remaining in contact with the young people 
who interest him. It is up to him to make his conditions. 
Albert mentioned a sum which he thought would be too high, 
but Flexner only smiled, it was so very modest/* 

"Does that mean that he has accepted?** I was immensely 
relieved. 

"No. He cannot resign himself to a final departure/* 

"But this is madness. You can't allow him to refuse." I 
almost shouted in my anxiety, as though she had been deaf. 

"I did what I could, but you know . . /* Everything in 
Elsa seemed shattered and bruised, her glance, her voice, the 
broken gestures of her wrists. I was frightened, very fright- 
ened, as though danger were already around the corner. I 
spoke very fast I told her all I knew about the unavoidable 
horrors in preparation, of the dangers that threatened Ein- 
stein. My fear rose in a rush of anger, my words came quicker 
than my thoughts. I went so far as to say to Elsa that to leave 
him in Germany was to perpetrate a murder. This word 
stung her to the quick. She sank in her chair. "Murder,*" she 
repeated. "But all this is not definite. Flexner is staying 
another day or two in Berlin." The white, stiff lips hardly 
moved. Her eyes seemed colorless, as if glazed. Their blind 
glance traveled around the large room, as though clinging 
to the pale walls, to the table laid for a meal, to the strange 
Japanese sculpture, in order not to abandon them forever. 

203 - 



Elsa was parting with this refuge she had loved so much. I 
was miserable in the knowledge that I had hurt her. But 
across my misery a voice kept hammering in me: He must go 
away. . . . 

Einstein's large form filled the doorway. He wore a shirt 
open at his sunburned neck, an old sweater under the baggy 
white suit, and his bare feet were in espadrilles. He radiated 
health and well-being. Elsa hastened to tell him about my 
warnings. But faced with his peaceful strength, I did not feel 
so convinced any more. "Murder," she kept repeating. Her 
lips rounded in horror, as she uttered the word in German: 
Mord a round and swift word like a ball flung with great 
force. It affected even Einstein's detached attitude. When he 
danced at me, his eyes suddenly grown dark, I knew that the 
same thought had occurred to him as welL 

The maid came in. She stopped as though wanting to say 
something. She had been in their service a long time. 

"What is it?" Elsa encouraged her. 

"I won't go to our baker any more. He's saying nasty things 
. . .** She hesitated. **. . . He's been saying he can't make 
out how it is I can live in a Jewish house the horrid creature. 
* . ." She was trembling with rage. "No, no, nothing can 
happen to the professor," she replied to Klsals question. 
They all love him here. It's only this scoundreU" She looked 
thoroughly ashamed. 

There may be others like him/* I said. She glanced at me 
anxiously, suspiciously, and walked out of the room in si- 
lence. 

The evening dragged on, heavily. The miracle of a familiar 
environment, the great silence of the country around us, 

204 - 



worked on us after a while. Hie horror of the morrow be- 
came blurred. 

"All the same, you will go and see Hexner," said Elsa. 

"Yes, it is perhaps better to take some precautions" 
Einstein had already accepted the situation; one might al- 
most say that he was already pulling up his roots. A line of 
Goethe flashed through my mind: "to build on a hard rock or 
to live in a tent/* Einstein was one of those who carry a tent 
with them. Nothing could overcome his serenity and his 
ability to adapt himself to a situation. Gradually Elsa re- 
covered her cheerful self* Later, our conversation reminded 
me of one of those old-fashioned quilts made up of odd bits 
of material squares of black set among light blue patches. 

Einstein accompanied me along the dark and slippery 
path. It was a thick, black night Hie house with its lighted 
windows looked like a brave little ship launched into dark- 
ness. From the road I could watch it float for a long time in 
its short luminous wake. I suddenly gripped Einstein's arm. 
I knew that I would never see this bright hull of peace again. 
The last bus appeared on the road. I walked faster, relieved 
by the abruptness of this parting. Einstein had turned back, 
walking in his quiet and peaceful way. His white coat stood 
out like a milky target in the night 

At the Potsdam station where I was tramping up and down 
the platform waiting for the train, everything seemed to me 
absurd and unreal I had behaved like a madwoman. A few 
passengers, peaceful and drowsy, passed by me. Red and 
green lights flickered in a purple sky. The night was closing 
in around the silence of slumbering towns. "Absurd," I be- 
lieve I said to myself aloud. These mad words I had uttered 

205 - 



. . . Mord ... It was hard to believe that their echo was 
true in this peaceful night 

Suddenly a group of young men emerged noisily onto the 
platform. They all wore swastikas in their buttonholes. They 
called each other by their Christian names, shouted gaily, 
swore abundantly. Their voices were slightly high-pitched, 
they were all a little drunk. I decided suddenly to make 
my way behind them into a first-class carriage one of those 
German carriages without compartments, the seats separated 
by a passage in the middle. The young men still lingered at 
the windows, exchanging, amid loud bursts of laughter, epi- 
tibets like "dirty swine" and "drunk.' 7 The train moved out in 
the din of their young voices. I was alone, about 1 A.M., with 
about a dozen young Nazis. "A German woman does not use 
any make-up," said the Volkischer Beobachter. I had just put 
on a little lipstick. A German woman doesn't smoke. I had 
lit a cigarette. I had an hour to experiment in. I was not too 
sure what was going to happen. 

From my corner in the carriage I observed the young 
Nazis. Most of them had bright, open, smiling faces. Sons of 
solid bourgeois families, well turned out, some of them with 
clean starched collars, even on this summer night. Well-kept 
hands, unspoiled by manual labor. Healthy, pampered chil- 
dren, the pride of their families. The first thing that struck 
me coming from those innocent pink lips was their language, 
a language I had never heard before, that I had known only 
as the language of the trenches from Remarque's book. Sordid 
swear words thrown out with an open smile, ugly words 
uttered with a touch of tenderness. Well-modulated voices 
that tried to sound tough. These mothers* sons spoke like 
slum children. They pkyed havoc with grammar, accent, and 

- 206 



meaning. If a proper word slipped out by mistake they cor- 
rected themselves and instantly replaced it with a vulgar bit 
of slang. 

"Why didn't that slut of a sister of yours turn up yester- 
day ?" a fair-haired boy was asking. 

"Dunno. I beat it early this morning," a dark, dreamy boy 
replied. 

'TThat little f bitch of a Marie didn't come either/* 

someone said. 

"Females *s the only thing you bastards can think of!" 
exclaimed a redhead sitting in a corner, in the abrupt tone of 
a leader. 

"That's a lie," the blond one retorted. "We on these 

females." He threw a coy glance at me from under his long 
lashes. 

They talked about their families; one young cherub raged 
about his bitch of an inquisitive mother; a pimply youth 
fumed about his unaccommodating bastard of a father. But 
they did not add any stress to these words. They smiled at 
each other with friendliness, and as I have said, they had all 
had a little too much to drink. They were sleepy, like children 
are when they have been in the fresh air too long. They tried 
to keep awake to show that they were grown up. From the 
far corner of the carriage resounded the words: "Swine of a 
Jew, 7 * followed by the name of the police superintendent of 
Berlin. 

The fair-haired boy opposite me gave a wry smile. "He 
won't last long, well take care of him, well see that he gets 
what he deserves soon." The police superintendent was 
turned into their whipping boy. The conversation became 
general and concerned the treatment which ought to be in- 

* 207 - 



flicted upon that swine of a Jew who imagined he could curb 
them. The boys with the bright faces were outbidding one 
another in cruelty. The superintendent was not the only one 
for whom they reserved unimaginable tortures. His wife was 
not going to be spared. They enumerated the parts of a 
woman's body with gross detail. They exchanged lewd re- 
marks at the tops of their voices, used words of which I could 
only guess the meaning. They promised themselves to prome- 
nade her naked and set fire to her. They laughed uproari- 
ously. They created an unreal atmosphere, with this mixture 
of subtle sadism and innocent childish malice. One would 
have said that the images they invoked did not penetrate 
their minds. At the same time, hell seemed to have opened 
up at their feet to vomit fire, blood, and sulphur. 

Suddenly the redhead got up and crossed to the other side 
of the carriage, making his way toward me. His mouth was 
slightly contorted as though he was still masticating the 
horrors he had uttered. He stopped in front of me. I must 
admit that my heart stood still. "May I ask you for a light? 5 * 
His voice suddenly became cultured. He was staring at me 
with curiosity and thanked me with exaggerated politeness. 

I knew the superintendent and his wife. She was a hand- 
some, dark woman with large, questioning eyes. I was able 
to attach a body, features, a glance to the unleashed imagi- 
nations of my traveling companions. Other names of high 
officials or prominent Jews rolled in the mud of their con- 
versation. The verb "to kilT had become its thread. The 
slang word for it, kitten, cracked like a whip, Wird gekittt 
resounded like the theme of a song. Gekittt, Gekittt. The 
young voices choked with sensual delight The wheels them- 
selves were hammering the word. The Berlin station, wel- 

208 



coming the train with its lights, seemed to me a true release, 

I pounced on the telephone early next morning to tell Elsa 
Einstein of my experience. The phantom had become a 
reality. A clear and smiling face beaming around an infamous 
word. I continued my arguments in an urgent letter. I begged 
Einstein to accept the American proposal. 

A few days after my departure to Paris, Elsa replied to 
me: "Your letter caused me a lot of sorrow, though it was 
also a joy to me. Joy because you love us it showed so 
strongly in your letter. Sorrow because it means we have 
to leave this place. It isn't so simple for Albert. He is so at- 
tached to his Caputh. Nowhere is he so divinely happy as 
here. He declares that for the moment nothing will make fa' 
budge. He does not know the meaning of fear. 5 * 

In fact, she herself was hesitant and uneasy. Usually the 
lightning conductor of every alarm, her senses had become 
blunted by security. "Today I do not know whether I am 
right in chasing him by force from this solid ground, Tlie 
villagers are devoted to him. Even the local Nazis greet him 
with respect." She knew that I no longer had any faith in the 
good intentions of the Germans. She hastened to reassure 
me: "He does not go walking alone any more. If there is no 
one else, his secretary goes with him." 

The whole letter showed her uneasiness. *1 would like 
him to keep silent for the moment, not sign any manifestoes, 
and devote himself solely to his own problems. 3 * From afar, 
the echo of Elsa's insistent voice bouncing against her hus- 
band's impenetrable obstinacy reached me. She went on: 
^Yesterday he said to me: Tf I was what you want me to be 
I would not be Albert Einstein/ " 

Her pride in her husband overcame her anxiety. She also 

* 209 - 



told me that slie was constantly worried about him when he 
was in America. His pacifist speeches had upset American 
public opinion. And over there, wrote Elsa, "everything is 
more violent, frenzied, ferocious.** 

Einstein had, in principle, accepted the American offer, 
but in the way that one takes out a life insurance policy 
without expecting an imminent death. In any case in July 
he went to Brussels to take part in a congress. He remained 
several weeks in Belgium and Holland, longing to be back 
in Caputh. He missed the simple, untroubled life. He was 
particularly nostalgic about his little boat, the boat that 
was so much a part of him. There seemed to be a lull in the 
German situation. The upsurge of Nazism appeared to have 
been arrested. Again the little village breathed perfect peace. 
"Was it really so necessary that I should go?" he teased his 
wife. He must have also made fun of me, but Elsa never 
spoke of it 

The house was full of visitors: his son, his daughter-in- 
law, his grandson. The autumn was a particularly flam- 
boyant one. Elsa's letters brought vivid descriptions of 
these blurred autumn days, sad because of their mellowness, 
with that silvery background behind the pillars of the trees. 
Toward the end of September, Albert Einstein still went 
sailing daily. tt He is obsessed with it," Elsa wrote, It's as 
though he wanted to saturate himself with joy for the whole 
year." Did he akeady realize that he was never again to 
see this liquid mirror of water, the sails filled with the lazy 
autumn wind and the pale sun behind the light screen of 
mist? Was he consciously tearing himself away from his most 
treasured belongings: solitude and peace? 

Elsa's premonition as to the American attitude was con- 

210 



finned. The Woman Patriot Corporation addressed a petition 
to the American government asking that Einstein be refused 
entry to the U.S., as "a Communist and a menace to Ameri- 
can institutions." Einstein saw in that no indication of a 
change of attitude toward Trim; it only tickled his sense of 
humor. He burst out laughing. And he was still shaking with 
silent laughter when he wrote his "Reply to American 
Women 77 : "Never yet have I experienced from the fair sex 
such an energetic rejection of all advances; or if I have, never 
from so many at once. But are they not quite right, these 
watchful citizenesses? Why should one's doors be opened 
to a person who devours hard-boiled capitalists with as much 
appetite and gusto as the Cretan Minotaur in days gone by 
devoured luscious Greek maidens and, on top of that, is 
low-down enough to reject every sort of war, except the 
inevitable one with one's own wife? Therefore give heed to 
your clever and patriotic women and remember that the 
capital of mighty Rome was once saved by the cadding of its 
loyal geese." 

Einstein's departure for America was marked by this com- 
bative good humor. It was nothing like a final departure. 
In fact, they were going away, both of them, as they did 
every year, to spend a winter in California in the familiar 
surroundings of Pasadena. The ferocious growth of Nazism 
might wane it seemed so absurd, so inconceivable in the 
long run. The little home in Caputh would be waiting for 
them. The permanence of inanimate objects seemed more 
real than the confusion of ideas. But cling though she did 
to the idea of a temporary measure, Elsa was upset. Their 
departure for America was complicated by the illness of her 
younger daughter, Margot. She had recovered, but the ill- 

211 - 



ness had accentuated even more her extremely fragile ap- 
pearance, the transparency of her face. She was convalescing 
in a nursing home and Elsa was greatly worried at the idea 
of leaving her alone. She said to herself that her daughter 
needed her more than her husband. The tragic conflict of her 
life was approaching its climax. In normal conditions, on a 
shorter journey, she would have let Einstein go alone. In 
spite of all the arrangements she was making, she seemed 
to doubt whether this was one of the usual journeys in their 
wandering life. Yet everything remained as it was, both in 
Caputh and in the Haberlandstrasse. Everything was waiting 
for their return. 

They left on December 12, 1932. Langevin journeyed from 
Paris to see Albert Einstein. There was a wonderful under- 
standing between them, based on a concurrence of opinion 
as well as on their common scientific interests: '"They had a 
lot to say to each other," Elsa wrote to me on the day they 
left. ""You will soon hear what these two fellows have con- 
cocted,** They were never to meet again. 

Elsa Einstein, who had the gift of living in the present, 
already had her mind fixed completely on the journey. They 
sailed on a ship of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, the Oakland. 
The ship was going direct to the Panama Canal, then along 
Guatemala, and the Mexican coast to California. They had a 
suite on the upper deck and had stocked themselves with 
numerous books for their long journey. *lt will be like living 
in paradise," wrote Elsa; ^everything would be perfect but 
for the pain of the long separation from my children." 

She did not seem to realize that there would be no return 
from this journey. 



212 



Chapter XII 



THE accession of the Nazis to power took Einstein by sur- 
prise in the sunny peace of his California!! refuge. Surprise 
is the right word to explain what happened. Like many 
German intellectuals, he must have, in spite of his usually 
dear judgment, underestimated the power of stupidity and 
bestiality. In any case, like Elsa, he was mistaken about the 
speed with which events were talcing place. Elsa's daughters 
were in Germany with their husbands. Nothing had been 
planned in the way of immediate steps, except the return to 
Berlin* "The little home" was waiting for them, as well as 
the house in the Haberlandstrasse where everything was 
standing in the same place the furniture, the silver, the bric- 
a-brac that had followed them all their lives and had a senti- 
mental value. Even their money was all in their bank account 
in Berlin. 

Einstein was returning home by sea when the first news 
reached him about the situation in Germany and the meas- 
ures of ''purification* that had already begun. He did not, 

- 213 



even for one moment, envisage the possibility of going there, 
or even of letting Elsa make a quick journey to Berlin to 
save some of their property if anything could still be saved 
at the time. When they landed in Antwerp, he had no roof 
over his head, almost no money; he had indeed been caught 
napping. Another man would have been dismayed, would 
have wanted to temporize before making a decision, as so 
many, in fact, did. But Einstein's reactions were swift and 
definite. He lived completely in the present. There is a 
trace of Hamlet in each of us, ready to emerge at critical 
moments, but in Einstein there was no hesitation. He did 
not wait to examine both sides of the question he was grap- 
pling with. There was no time lag between his thought and 
his actions. He had made his choice as he walked down the 
gangway and was consequently perfectly calm. 

His first refuge was a students* hostel in Belgium. The 
first offer of hospitality came from the Belgian royal family. 
The King wrote him a long letter in his small, regular hand- 
writing, saying what an honor it would be for Belgium if 
Einstein decided to settle down in that country. King Albert 
may not have been an intellectual, he may not always have 
been the brightest of conversationalists, but his offended 
sense of justice, his disgust at what was taking place in Ger- 
many, on this occasion enabled him to put his thoughts into 
words that were infinitely moving in their dignity. It was not 
in the least neutral, this letter written by the king of a small 
country; he did not spare his neighbors* feelings. Considera- 
tions of state did not make hfm less generous in his sympathy 
with the victims. Many great men might have been proud to 
have written such a letter at such a time. A pressing letter 
from the Queen came at the same time. Letters and tele- 

- 214 * 



grams arrived from all parts of the world offering asylum to 
Einstein or urging him to return to America. One or two 
ridiculous suggestions introduced a humorous element into 
the tragedy. 

Einstein decided to stay in Belgium. He was naive enough 
to believe that he could preserve his anonymity. He and Elsa 
avoided large towns and popular seaside resorts. They chose 
a picturesque summer residence on the coast which suited 
their modest tastes and w r hich was still quite deserted, as it 
was not yet the season. The tiny house they found appeared 
by its very remoteness the ideal refuge in the storm that was 
breaking out around them. As soon as he arrived on Euro- 
pean soil, Einstein made the following declaration: 

*As long as I have any choice, I will only stay in a country 
where political liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens 
before the law are the rule. Political liberty implies liberty 
to express political opinions orally and in writing, and 
tolerance implies respect of individual opinions. At the 
present moment these conditions are non-existent in Ger- 
many. People who have worked for international understand- 
ing are persecuted there, and among them are many great 
artists. Social organisms, like individuals, can be stricken 
with psychological trauma, especially when times are diffi- 
cult. Nations usually survive such afflictions. I hope that 
Germany will soon recover her sanity and that in future men 
like Kant and Goethe wiH not only be remembered from time 
to time, but that the principles they taught will prevail in 
public life and in the conscience of the people." 

This declaration, although made in very restrained lan- 
guage, was especially well fitted to unleash the fury of the 
Nazis. The tone of ralm superiority, with the tinge of sar- 

- 215 - 



casm concerning the transitory character of the German 
eclipse, exasperated the rulers of the Third Reich, who 
dreamed of a millennium of domination. Newspapers all 
over the world published Einstein's declaration. 

At the same time lie sent in his resignation to the Prussian 
Academy of Science. The Academy responded with all the 
zeal of neophytes of the official doctrine. It declared that it 
had learned with, indignation through the newspapers of 
Albert Einstein's participation in the atrocity campaign 
launched in France and America and that it had immedi- 
ately asked for an explanation. It added that its members 
were "bound by the closest of ties with the Prussian State 
and that, notwithstanding the discretion required of them in 
the political sphere, they have always served and safe- 
guarded the national idea. The Academy therefore has no 
reason to regret Einstein's withdrawal." This was Bow the 
Prussian Academy parted with its most eminent member. 
Einstein replied at once, declaring that he had never partici- 
pated in what they called "atrocity-mongering" and that he 
had not been aware that such a campaign existed anywhere. 
There had been reports and comments on the measures and 
official declarations of responsible members of the German 
government as well as on the program concerning the ex- 
termination of German Jews Tby economic methods." He 
gave a detailed explanation of his first declaration to the 
press. *1 explained the present state of Germany as a mental 
aberration of the masses and made a few remarks upon the 
causes of this condition." He mentioned another declaration 
made to the International League against Anti-Semitism, 
not intended for publication, an appeal ~to all people of 
intelligence to remain loyal to the ideals of a threatened 

216 



civilization, to do everything in their power to see that the 
mass hysteria which was being displayed in so terrible a 
fashion in Germany did not spread further*" He added that 
the German press had "distorted his remarks, as might have 
been expected from a muzzled press." He demanded that the 
Academy should bring his declaration to the knowledge of 
its members and concluded: *1 am ready to stand by every 
word I have published.** 

The altercation between Einstein and the Prussian Acad- 
emy caused a great stir and provoked much argument The 
first hasty step of the Academy must have aroused opposition 
among its own members. One could not part with a man of 
Einstein's reputation so casually. The Academy was torn, 
like so many German intellectuals of that period, between 
the desire to fit in with the policy of the government at home 
and at the same time to reconcile public opinion abroad. It 
was typical of the neophytes of the new regime, who threw 
a cloak of tolerance over Nazi crimes in the name of na- 
tional unity and at the same time tried to apologize for 
their cowardice abroad, by stressing the necessity of inter- 
national co-operation. Violent, malicious declarations written 
in a bad new German appeared constantly in the servile press 
at home while pathetic reproaches were published abroad. In 
a direct answer to Einstein, made through the intermediary 
of its Dutch correspondent, the Academy completely 
changed its tone: 

*Tf the Academy deeply deplores the turn events have 
taken [the same Academy that had declared that there was 
no reason to regret his departure!] it is chiefly because a 
man of such high scientific authority, after spending so many 
years of work in the midst of the Academy, among Germans, 

- 217 - 



years in which he must have become closely acquainted with 
the German character and habits of thought, should have 
now joined the party of those abroad who, partly out of 
ignorance of true conditions and facts, spread false and un- 
founded accusations against our German nation." 

The Academy made another appeal to Einstein, not be- 
cause it hoped to shake his decision, for it knew that it would 
have been forced to expel him even if he had remained 
silent (it hinted at that in the letter), but because it wished 
to deceive public opinion abroad as to the character of the 
regime to which it had so willingly submitted. "How great 
would have been the effect abroad if your voice, your voice 
in particular, had been raised in defense of the German 
people at a time when such monstrous and ridiculous calum- 
nies were being spread against them. We have been cruelly 
disappointed that your testimony has been used by those 
who, not content with opposing and slandering the present 
German government, are also enemies of the German peo- 
ple." 

Einstein thought this "academic'* correspondence most 
significant and revealing. He knew that such declarations 
went far beyond his personal case, startling though it was. 
They contained all the elements of the tragedy that was to 
disrupt the world and ruin Germany. In April 1933 Nazi 
barbarism was already all-powerful. To do it justice, it never 
tried to pass for what it was not. It left this contemptible 
task to the more respectable Germans, to high officials who 
had good reputations abroad, and to famous scientists. In 
this April 1933 the concentration camps, which afterward 
appeared to the civilized world like visions from the Apoca- 
lypse, were already at work Jews, Communists, Socialists, 

- 218 



and pacifists underwent tortures that were performed with 
a refinement in the art of human degradation hitherto un- 
known. A fugitive from Dachau brought to Paris 180 names 
of victims written on the lining of his coat. 

The Prussian Academy of Science counted among its mem- 
bers the greatest brains of Germany, including several win- 
ners of the Nobel Prize, and this same Academy branded the 
warnings of the civilized world as "monstrous, and often 
ridiculous, calumnies," The great names of its members were 
to help deceive the world, which one day paid heavily for 
having believed German lies. 

"You have declared," Einstein replied to the Academy, 
"that my voice raised on behalf of the German people would 
have had a great effect abroad. I have to reply that such an 
act would have been equivalent to a denial of all the ideas of 
justice and equality for which I have struggled all my life. 
In fact, far from being a voice raised on behalf o the Ger- 
man people, it would have been on behalf of those who are 
destroying the ideas and principles that have given the Ger- 
man people a place of honor in world civilization. In doing 
this, I would have contributed, though indirectly, to the de- 
struction of all our cultural values." 

At the same time the Bavarian Academy intervened to 
declare its support of the Prussian Academy and wished to 
know Einstein's attitude toward the Bavarian Academy, in 
the light of the events that had taken place. Einstein replied 
that he wished to have his name struck off its list of members, 
"It is the chief task of academies to protect the scientific life 
of a country, German scientific societies have, as far as I 
know, allowed without protest a considerable number of 
German scientists and students, as well as members of other 

219 * 



professions with academic degrees, to be deprived of the 
opportunity to work and live in Germany. I could not belong 
to a community which adopted such an attitude, even if it 
did so under external pressure." 

There was something magnificent about the calm of Ein- 
stein's declarations. He wrote them in the heat of the mo- 
ment, but every word was carefully weighed. He had his 
anger under control and he was using his favorite weapon 
irony. His thunder seemed to descend from behind the 
clouds. But he was living in an atmosphere of great anxiety: 
Elsa's daughters were still in Germany. They could not help 
reading daily the abuse showered upon Albert Einstein, the 
incitements to assassination. The house in the Haberland- 
strasse was searched. lisa happened to be there when the 
state police came. Her nervous system never recovered from 
the shock. The Tittle house** in Caputh was also searched. 
The garden was dug up in a methodical way, in search of 
arms. An obliging neighbor supplied Hitler's stooges with 
spades. Tte Nazi machinery had not yet reached the stage 
of perfection for the weapons in question to have material- 
ized. Einstein's accusations against the servility of the Ger- 
man spirit were met with the absurd accusation of an armed 
plot, with police measures. Even a sense of humor had died 
under the terror. 

Einstein's bank account, the only source of income for 
Elsa's two sisters and her younger daughter and her son-in- 
law, had been confiscated. The family spent every night wait- 
ing for the sinister knocks at the door which had become so 
familiar. Elsa was almost suffocated with anxiety. When I 
saw her a few months later she was still a nervous wreck, as 
a result of these months spent in mortal terror for her chil- 

- 220 



dren. A long letter in April, which it took her days to write, 
described her tragic life. "My husband has not allowed 
himself to be silenced. Nothing could stop hmi from speak- 
ing out his mind. He has remained faithful to himself. And 
my children were over there, almost distraught with anxiety.** 
At the time she was writing, lisa was already with them and 
Margot was expected momentarily. lisa's journey had been 
kept very secret, for she intended to go back to Berlin, to 
dismantle the flat in the Haberlandstrasse and the little 
house in Caputh. Above all she did not want to abandon 
her husband, a former director of a German monthly. Jew- 
ish journalists were being liquidated" rapidly, but he hesi- 
tated about leaving because of his father who, with the 
obstinacy of old age, refused to leave Germany. 

Many future tragedies could have been avoided but for 
the numerous halfway decisions and divided loyalties. The 
German Jews imagined that they could still build for them- 
selves peaceful little lives, remote from the storm, though the 
Nazis had already made their program public with merciless 
clarity, and the Nuremberg laws were beginning to operate. 

lisa, still deeply upset by her recent experiences, was 
caught between her loyalty to her husband and her respect 
for Albert's convictions. One of them must surely be wrong. 
Her husband's cautious arguments were so plausible, and 
Albert's opinions might be merely the extravagances of a 
genius. She never recovered from the strain of that conflict. 
TTiere she was, trembling and fragile, her narrow face wear- 
ing an expression of painful surprise that never left it; deep 
shadows lay under her eyes, she jumped at every bang on 
the door. Tears rush to my eyes when I look at her," wrote 
"God grant that she decides not to go back. But she is 

221 - 



adamant at the moment" lisa very soon went back, secretly, 
terrified that a chance indiscretion might reveal that she had 
been visiting a man who was considered a traitor in the 
whole of Germany a traitor even in the eyes of the German 
Jews. 

One of the darkest spots of this first period of confusion 
was the reaction of many German Jews. Thousands of them 
paid with their blood for the kind of attitude they showed 
toward Einstein. They blamed him for the blows that fell on 
them. They explained as reprisals the scrupulously executed 
clauses in the Nazi program. I have never seen a bird fas- 
cinated by a serpent, but that image corresponds exactly to 
the paralysis of the German Jews faced by Nazism. Had 
they become so totally absorbed in the German nation? Were 
they Germans more than they were Jews, in spite of being 
rejected by the new Germany? "Anti-Semites often talk of 
the malice and cunning of the Jews," Einstein wrote kter 
on, "but has there ever been in history a more striking ex- 
ample of collective stupidity than the blindness of the Ger- 
man Jews?" 

Only the smallest fraction of them escaped in time and 
they were mostly intellectuals, aware not only of the danger 
that threatened them personally but also of the danger to 
their liberty of thought. They were, with few exceptions, 
poor Jews who withdrew, like dust on the road, leaving 
nothing behind them, searching for a better fate for their 
children and a more dignified life. 

"Jewish solidarity, 9 * Einstein said, "is another invention 
of their enemies. 9 * His mouth dropped faintly at the corners 
in what in anyone else would have been a smile of bitterness. 
**At its best it can be compared to the generosity of a man 

. 222 



throwing alms from the top of the stairs to a beggar to the 
spongers crowding at the back door.** Then he laughed out- 
right, without malice. A German Jew was present at that 
conversation. "We, the German Jews,** he said, "were fright- 
ened by the influx of Polish and Russian Jews during the 
pogroms and prided ourselves on being different. Now, for 
the French Jews we are the Jews from the East . . .** And 
he shrugged his shoulders in resignation. 

A Committee of Aid to German Jews was formed in Paris 
in May 1933. This first wave of emigration, composed of poor 
intellectuals and small tradesmen, disturbed the French Jews 
considerably. I had just published several articles in the 
Excelsior on German terror and its victims, on the exodus of 
writers and scientists, who were the first to bring the fruit 
of their research abroad. I was invited to a meeting where 
the problems of thfe growing emigration were to be discussed, 
in the house of a rich French industrialist. "We are ready to 
welcome this Jewish elite,** our host said, and I interrupted 
him: 

"It is not only a Jewish elite, there are also non-Jews, clear- 
thinking Germans among them, who are leaving a country 
where there is no longer any liberty of thought. Besides, the 
struggle against Nazism is not a Jewish question. The Jews 
are only the Nazis* first objective." 

TBut it is the Jews who are occupying our minds. What 
are the elements that form the present Jewish emigration? 
What can we do for them? 7 * I was asked. "We should avoid 
admitting those who can create competition for the French,** 
our host went on. ^Immigration of this sort might provoke 
anti-Semitism in France, though of course this could not 
mean anything like persecution on the German scale. . . .** 

223 * 



*lt couldn't happen here 9 * words repeated everywhere at 
that time "national interests"; "non-interf erence with the in- 
ternal politics of a country"; Trance mustn't provoke Ger- 
many"; "justified as our humanitarianism may be, it should 
not make us blind to our true interests." 

The conscience of the world lay spread out before us on 
the oriental carpet of this luxurious house. How terribly 
familiar it all was! 

When I told the story to Einstein, he said: *lt is not a 
purely Jewish conflict, it is part of a social conflict of* far 
greater importance. The haves are getting together to defend 
themselves against the have-nots." 

Slavery to comfort accentuated the tragic drama that was 
beginning. Against all evidence, the rich Jewish bourgeoisie 
was clinging to its fortunes, to its houses, to its furniture. I 
called it the complex of the cupboard which was too heavy to 
transport abroad. Thousands of them were to die horrible 
deaths because they had been unable to part with their now 
meaningless property. In their servility to material things, 
they had lost all clarity of judgment and all human dignity. 

*Tflie greatest tragedy in my husband's life," Elsa wrote in 
April, "is that the German Jews make him responsible for all 
the horrors that happen to them over there. They believe he 
has provoked it all and in their resentment have announced 
their total dissociation from him. We get as many angry let- 
ters from the Jews as we do from the Nazis. And that when 
he sacrificed everything for them, he who has always been 
fearless, who has never failed them! How tragic that the 
same people who idolized him are now flinging mud at him! 
They are so cowed and frightened that they publish one 
declaration after another that they are treated well and have 

224 * 



nothing and will have nothing in common with Einstein. 
Read the contemptible pronouncements of the Central Com- 
mittee of German Jews, the Jewish Consistory, and other in- 
stitutions, dictated to them by despair and fear. They are all 
in the same condition; they misinterpret their situation so 
thoroughly that one can do nothing for them. Not one of 
them realizes what is really happening. They have burned 
every single photograph of my husband. But he never no- 
ticed these photographs at the time when he was acclaimed 
and that is why he is invulnerable today." 

Albert and Elsa Einstein were installed at Le Coq in Bel- 
gium. I went there on an almost official mission. De Monzie, 
then the French Minister of National Education, had asked 
me to offer Einstein a Chair at the College de France, vacant 
after the death of Charles Andler. I knew that Einstein was 
submerged with offers from all countries, but I also knew 
that he would have liked above everything to teach at the 
College de France. Suddenly a doubt flashed across my mind. 
It was a German Chair. The College de France alone could 
alter that, not the Minister. TVe talked to Joseph Bdier. He 
came today to confirm the resolution of the College," De 
Monzie reassured me, and urged me to secure Einstein's con- 
sent At the first mention of it, Elsa replied that her husband 
had already accepted the offer of the Institute at Princeton, 
that he had had commitments in Oxford and Leiden for 
years, and that he had agreed to lecture for a month every 
year in Madrid, as well as in Brussels in gratitude for Belgian 
hospitality. Tie must accept the Chair at the College de 
France, 7 * De Monzie insisted impatiently. 

The spring was slow in coming that year. A gray, wintiy 
sun hung over the coast. The silvery dunes were swept by a 

- 225 - 



sharp wind. Leaden waves beat against the shore; there was 
something desolate in the salt air that irritated the lungs. 
Le Coq gave one that impression of transition and solitude 
that most seaside resorts give when they are deserted and 
do not live a borrowed life. 

The Einsteins lived in a small house in the center of the 
village. There was a living room and a kitchen on the ground 
floor, and three little rooms on the second floor. Margot lived 
with them, as did Mademoiselle Dukas, Einstein's loyal sec- 
retary. In his bedroom a plain table by the window served 
Einstein as a desk. The little house echoed with the sound of 
voices and the creaking of the boards on the stairs, the noise 
of the dishes in the kitchen and the hammering of the type- 
writer. It was one of those temporary houses that brings 
sadly to -mind the space and comfort of homes one will never 
see again. But Einstein stood at the door with a broad, wel- 
coming smile. As usual, everything around him was reduced 
to a mere background. 

~Of course I accept. Ill have to run through the course 
very rapidly. I don't know how I'll manage about the rest. I 
feel like a peddler: *Would you like some nice new socks? 
Would you like a bit of obscure science?* " He was laughing 
with his usual boisterous laughter. I often said to myself: if 
a great tree could have laughed, shaking its powerful 
branches, this is how it would laugh. 

The French press had already released the news of the 
offer made to Einstein. It was accompanied with flattering 
comments and warm words of welcome. Einstein gave me a 
special statement for Excelsior. He spoke of the French 
people's strong sense of responsibility, of the moral principles 
in politics and culture which Europe owed to France. He 

- 226 



said: "I know that these moral forces are still alive in France 
and that today on the Continent of Europe they form the 
stronghold of traditions of spiritual and political liberty, so 
imminently threatened. The idea of serving science together 
with my French friends fills me with great joy, no less *b*tt> 
the cordiality with which French authorities and the French 
people have welcomed my nomination.'* 

De Monzie, who had just gone to Belgium to inaugurate an 
exhibition of James Ensor's works, was delighted at Einstein's 
acceptance, and went to Le Coq to express his gratitude to 
him. 

Einstein left for America in the autumn, planning to return 
to Paris in April 1934 In January he asked me to let him 
know whether the term started in April, as he wanted to 
arrive at the last moment; he was reluctant to part too soon 
from his collaborator, for whom he had obtained a lifelong 
position at Princeton. Elsa and he had planned not to settle 
down in Paris, where they had too many friends and ac- 
quaintances. Einstein had a fancy for the mellow background 
of the He de France; he needed peace and the large horizons 
of the country. 

The Chair at the College de France never materialized. 
De Monzie had been too impetuous. Joseph B6dier, too, had 
been too hasty in committing himself without first ensuring 
the consent of the College de France. The latter refused to 
transform Andler's German chair into a scientific one. De 
Monzie asked the Financial Committee of the Chamber of 
Deputies to create a new one, but the demand was refused. 
For a long time I could not get over this ridiculous situation. 
I believe Einstein learned of it through the newspapers. Elsa 
tried to console me: **He has forgotten all about it. Bear the 

- 227 - 



French a grudge? What an idea! It is all to the good. He will 
be less rushed in his work." 

The fury of the Nazi pack against him became more and 
more violent. Among the propaganda literature I received 
from Germany (I had asked for it to be sent to me, though 
it was nauseating) was an illustrated brochure, by an author 
whose name I have forgotten, with the title: "The Jews Are 
Watching You." It was a collection of most unflattering pho- 
tographs of Nazi enemies, baptized in the Jewish faith for 
the occasion, such as the Communists Thaelmann and Mun- 
zenberg and the Catholic Erzberger, who was killed by the 
precursors of the Nazis. This booklet was simply an incite- 
ment to murder. Einstein's photograph headed the list. All 
the malice of the photographer had not succeeded in altering 
the distinction of his features and the confidence of his 
glance. There was a caption underneath: "Not yet hanged." 
The sinister words contrasted stardingly with the calm ex- 
pression of superiority on his face. 

I had the photograph and the caption reproduced in Ex- 
celsior. It was published on the front page. I saw people in 
the bus start when their eyes fell on it. With the help of this 
document I was able to impress the good French bourgeoisie 
with a type of barbarity inconceivable to the Latin mind. 
The brochure must have had great success in Germany. I 
received a second edition, but this time without Einstein's 
portrait. The young Third Reich was still self-conscious 
about the impression it created abroad. 

I went back to Le Coq in August The season was at its 
peak and the little village was full of people, like a fair- 
ground. Einstein's house was swallowed up by the perpetual 
coming and going of visitors, but he lived among all the 

228 



noise more inaccessibly than ever. One morning I found Trim 
in the room on the ground floor sitting at a large table with 
his assistant, Professor Mayer. They were both hard at work. 
I could hear the typewriter hammering above. "Elsa is dic- 
tating letters/* said Einstein. "She hasn't many more to do. 
Sit down and wait a moment, you are not disturbing me in 
the least." I went over to a corner of the room by the window 
and took a sheet of paper, intending to write a letter. My pen 
remained in the air. 

"No/* Einstein was saying with determination, "this is the 
way to do it." Then came a series of formulae; his firm voice 
sounded like that of a man thinking aloud. 

"Don't you think . . ." went on Mayer, and out came a 
row of figures which he put down on paper. The words I 
caught here and there had no meaning for me; they might 
have been talking Chinese. But I was embarrassed, as though 
I were committing a grave indiscretion: I had surprised 
Einstein at work. Mayer sat with his back to me, but I could 
see Einstein's face in the hard morning light. I hardly dared 
look at him, but I soon realized that he did not see me. His 
eyes did not have their usual brilliance; he seemed mentally 
a vacuum. But at the same time there was a fixity in his gaze 
as if he were deciphering a hieroglyph. He could see what he 
was saying. He was thinking with his eyes. It was a strange 
impression. These abstract formulae which he enounced with 
slow assurance were for him something visual, which I too 
might have seen if the language he spoke had not been un- 
familiar to me. They were something tangible, too, for from 
time to time he spread his hands and made signs and curves 
in the air with them. Mayer followed him with bated breath. 
He spoke fast, as though trying to catch up with him. Not 

229 



blindly. He protested, listened greedily to the explanations, 
shook his head; then his face lit up. I could see the sweat 
stand out on his forehead though it was not hot in the room, 

Einstein rose and walked around the table. His hand wrote 
something on an invisible blackboard. He stopped. He 
pulled at his pipe. A shadow flitted across his face, vanished 
in the smoke. His voice once again was raised as if for dicta- 
tion. He stopped for a moment. **Yes, that's right," he said, 
and kughed happily. "I told you so!" His features grew hu- 
man, lit up by an expression of boyish, slightly arrogant mis- 
chief. Then again his face withdrew as behind a transparent 
wall, so great was the concentration around him. His com- 
pact, solid form, leaning heavily against the table, made one 
think of a modern sculpture, of thought expressed in stone. 

**Yes," he told me later, "I can work anywhere, in any sur- 
roundings." He carried his world with him. His faculty of 
concentration or of abstraction, rather isolated him com- 
pletely. All his past seemed to have crumbled behind him, 
strewing its debris upon the present. Never had his strength 
been so remarkable as it was now; I am tempted to call it 
superhuman. I wonder whether he found it within himself, in 
some deep faith to which he subordinated all the petty trou- 
bles of this earth. His serenity was certainly the serenity of a 
believer. I suddenly realized that, after having known Tifm so 
well, I really knew very little about him. 

The first wave of German emigres had fled their homeland 
in confusion. The house at Le Coq became a shelter for the 
wreckage. As soon as they began to arrive, Elsa wrote to me: 
"From morning till night our house is invaded by people who 
need help. We have here an asylum for the unfortunate." But 
it was not only for material aid or for advice in rebuilding 

230 



their lives that people came to him they came searching for 
guidance in the general shipwreck of ideals, or simply to 
inhale a breath of faith. 

Other visitors mingled with the crowd of Emigres. Belgium 
was dangerously near Germany. There was a rumor that 
Goering's brother had come to Le Coq. Men with foreign 
accents asked too many questions about Einstein. Suspicious 
individuals roamed around the house. The murder of Theo- 
dor Lessing showed how precarious could be the security of 
exile and how powerful St. Vehme. 

Elsa went through terrible anxiety. "I can't sleep," she 
wrote. "I stretch myself out on the bed without undressing. 
I take every noise to be the approach of danger. It is said in 
Berlin that they have settled a price of twenty thousand 
marks on his head. Even if that isn't true, this rumor is bound 
to attract the attention of fanatical young men. 5 * She begged 
her husband to be careful, and not to take part in public 
demonstrations. "We have had violent arguments. He has 
reproached me for being a contemptible coward, for having 
no sense of dignity." 

Danger lurked in the peaceful nights. Alarming warnings 
reached the Belgian royal family. They upset Queen Eliza- 
beth deeply. She too vainly exhorted Einstein to be prudent. 
King Albert took more immediate measures. He had the little 
house surrounded with armed police. Two men shadowed 
Einstein and never left him for a moment. The two plain- 
clothes policemen made one think of characters out of a 
detective story. At the very moment of my arrival at Le Coq 
I saw one of them rush into the room. He was wiping his 
purple face and pulling at his long whiskers. His eyes were 

231 



popping out of his head and the heavy pocket of his coat was 
flapping. 

"Where is the prof essor?" he shouted in despair. 

"He is resting upstairs," Elsa replied calmly. 

"He isn't there my friend has just been to see he's 
gone ..." His despair was so comical that Elsa, in spite 
of her fears, could not help laughing. c WeTl try to find 
him. . . . Never have I had so hard a task. He slips out of 
our fingers like an eel. . . . His Majesty's orders were so 
very strict," he grumbled. He crunched the gravel angrily 
under his feet. 

Tou shouldn't have behaved like that, Albert," Elsa said 
to hiTn an hour later. 

"Hm . . . didn't I give them the slip?" Einstein looked at 
us, shaking with laughter, his eyes shirring with triumph. 

One day Einstein received a letter asking for an interview 
on a very confidential and urgent matter. He was not at Le 
Coq at the time and Elsa received the man in Margot's pres- 
ence. He asked to speak to her alone. I got a six-page letter 
describing this conversation; Elsa had been greatly upset by 
the revelations of the stranger. She did not know whether 
she was dealing with a counterspy or with a traitor who was 
ready to sell himself to the highest bidder; not knowing what 
else to do, she sent him to see me in Paris. 

When he arrived I saw a man whose eyes were those of a 
fanatic, blazing with hatred. His hair was closely cropped 
in the Prussian manner. He was a member of a titled German 
family. He offered to sell for a high price information on the 
Nazis* preparations for a world war. I feigned a smiling dis- 
belief. They have nothing to gain from a war." I must have 
carried off my little act of indifference well, for he tried 

232 - 



vehemently to persuade me that he was right. He spoke of 
rearmament plans, of Nazi ambitions concerning North 
Africa, of a spy ring that was to spread over the world, and 
of the decision of the Nazis to exterminate everybody who 
stood in the way of their domination. "They want to assas- 
sinate King Albert, for they will never get him to agree with 
them." He spoke of experiments made with a particularly 
powerful explosive, at which he said he had been present 
with Goering. He was ready to hand over all the secrets and 
the formula of the explosive for a large sum of money, of 
which he claimed to be in need. I suspected some dark story 
of rivalry, some fear of reprisals behind the hatred in his 
eyes. "Is it possible that Jewish organizations lack the few 
hundred thousand francs that would enable them to learn 
things which might save thousands and thousands of Jews? 
What I bring to them is sufficient material to overthrow the 
Nazis." There was a strange note of contempt in his voice, 
as though he were really indignant and my indifference only 
helped to exasperate him. He pulled papers out of his suit- 
case, proving that he had been ordered by Goering to assist 
at experiments with explosives. "It is easy to fake such 
papers," I said to myself. But they seemed to me, I could not 
say why, convincing and authentic. 

During this visit I remained torn between contradictory 
feelings. This was not the first undercover agent the Nazis 
had sent to me. I had seen many a spy, both pathetic and 
dangerous, and they usually betrayed themselves during 
conversation. But Herr von K. made me shudder with fear. 
(I admit that when he opened his briefcase I expected him 
to aim a revolver at me. ) And at the same time he inspired 
a peculiar confidence. He left me disappointed when I said 

233 



that no Jewish organization would offer him the money he 
asked two or three hundred thousand francs, if I am not 
mistaken. Elsa was right when she said that the man looked 
hunted. That was what I thought as I saw him walk, stoop- 
ing, down the path in my little garden. I immediately in- 
formed the Suret6. 

A few days later he wrote me a letter., signed with his 
name, which I also passed to that organization. They prom- 
ised to make inquiries, hut I never heard the man's name 
again. Either the police had not taken my warning seriously, 
or he had escaped them. The high official whom I had in- 
formed had been intensely interested, but later on he became 
a prominent figure in the Vichy government perhaps he al- 
ready belonged to the fifth column. Einstein had, in his turn, 
warned King Albert. Though the death of the King of the 
Belgians that great friend of France was later considered 
to have been accidental, I could not help thinking of those 
fanatical eyes in the face of a man who spoke of the King's 
death as though he were seeing it happen. 

Neither Einstein nor I have ever made up our minds 
whether we had had to do with a traitor or a lunatic, or 
whether we had missed the opportunity to learn a great deal 
about the Nazi menace from someone who knew. 

In the autumn of 1933 the Einsteins left for America. **It 
was hard to part with the children," Elsa wrote from the 
boat *This happens every year I ought to be used to it, but 
every time the rift is the same." lisa Kayser had come to 
Antwerp with her husband; Margot alone had remained at 
Le Coq in the now silent little house, to finish a wooden 
Madonna she had started during this eventful summer. 

234 



The long journey on the ship was a miraculous relaxation 
and Einstein found ideal conditions for work at Princeton. 
"The whole of Princeton is one great park with wonderful 
trees/' Elsa wrote to me. The autumn was revealing all its 
splendor, the trees were flaming with red and golden tints. 
They lived far from the turmoil of American life. "We might 
almost believe that we are in Oxford and when the bells ring 
and they ring so often here it makes us think of West- 
minster, of the heart of England. I have never seen a place 
in America that looks so un-American.** She was also de- 
lighted with the house that had been reserved for them an 
old patrician house at No. 2 Library Place surrounded by 
a big garden and with large, airy rooms, furnished with taste 
and care. After the camping life at Le Coq, this beautiful 
house seemed like a palace in a fairy tale. Einstein's assistant 
joined them, as did his secretary, who was the first to adapt 
herself completely to American life. A new existence full of 
comfort began for them. New ties of friendship came to 
soothe the wounds of disloyalty. Elsa's letters began to sound 
optimistic again. She had even recovered some of her vitality. 
**We are very happy here," she repeated. But she could not 
bring herself to be egotistical enough to enjoy the present 
fully, for she added at once: ^perhaps too happy." In her 
heart she was still tormented. "Sometimes one has a bad con- 
science. One thinks that everything has its compensation and 
that logically all this must end someday." 

She rarely got news from her daughters, not often enough 
to allay her anxiety. The "compensation," as she called it, 
turned out to be terrible. She was summoned to Paris in May 
1934. Usa was there, seriously ill. She had let her mother 
know only when she felt her condition to be critical. Margot 

235 - 



was with her. On the ship bringing her back to Europe, Elsa 
knew, in spite of all precautions that had been taken to con- 
ceal the truth from her, that she was arriving too late. In her 
despair she reproached herself for negligence. TBoth children 
have undergone terrible trials and they must have needed 
me. Why, oh, why did I not go earlier?" she wrote during the 
crossing. 

In a furnished apartment in the Rue du Docteur Blanche 
she found the emaciated body of a young woman: a face of 
which nothing remained but the eyes with a gray misty look 
of surrender in them. Margot, exhausted by anxiety and her 
vigil, looked strangely like her dying sister. lisa was taken to 
a nursing home in St. Cloud and Elsa summoned a Berlin 
doctor, French doctors came and went. It was tentatively 
diagnosed as an inoperable cancer, but in fact this was an 
incorrect diagnosis. But for her refusal to live she might pos- 
sibly have been saved. All she asked was not to suffer. Only 
when she died did a smile appear on her face, giving it bade 
suddenly all its youth and beauty. We brought her coffin 
from St. Cloud to Paris on a sultry summer day. Margot 
looked stunned: she was like those cripples who keep grop- 
ing for the absent limb. As I drove in the car following the 
coffin on a road bathed in a dazzling sun, I felt that I was 
accompanying not only a girl who had died before her time 
but also a mortally stricken mother. 

It was a long time before I had news from Elsa. "Since my 
child is no more, I no longer write, 5 * she said at last in a letter. 
She had had the courage to resume the thread of life, deso- 
late as she was. "I did all I believed I ought to do to please 
Albert and Margot.** She even spared them the spectacle of 
her suffering. But she was always aware of an irreparable 

236 



loss, that was like a wound that refused to heal. "I never stop 
longing for her." Her handwriting showed her deep distress. 
She drew some comfort from the fact that Margot had re- 
covered a certain calm in her work and, having regained 
strength under her mother's care, seemed to have risen above 
her grief. 

Elsa's principal source of strength came, as usual, from her 
husband. Albert Einstein had been greatly upset by lisa's 
death and his wife's grief. He reacted as believers do, with 
an increased ardor in his own religion, with a new creative 
effort of thought. 

Elsa spoke to me about it in the same tender and joking 
tones which the unknown regions of the mind always in- 
spired in her. "Albert has produced something outstanding. 
Nobody will recognize it, nobody believes in it, but perhaps 
one day when he is no more people will realize all that he has 
created. It appears that his new discovery is so bold that he 
will not see his idea realized during his lifetime." 

They spent the summer in Connecticut, where they found 
a house that Elsa compared to Paradise. "We have allowed 
ourselves an incredible luxury this year. We have rented a 
real estate twenty acres of land, groves and fields, with all 
the marvels of summer around us. There is even a tennis 
court and a swimming pool. We are so far from everything. 
There is such peace here. A silence such as I have experi- 
enced only once in the mountains.'' There were a few 
touches of her old humor in the letter: "Everything is so 
luxurious here that the first ten days I swear to you we ate 
in the pantry; the dining room was too magnificent for us." 
Again she reproached herself: "One feels ashamed to live so 
happily. . . .* One idea predominated in her: that she had 

237 



been unable to give lisa all that she had reserved for her in 
compensation for her suffering. The shadow of tier dead 
daughter threw a cloud over the splendor of the summer. 
"She has been sacrificed," Elsa wrote to me. She never failed 
to reproach herself. 

Einstein loved the solitude that surrounded him. Visitors, 
however, found their way there in spite of the remoteness of 
the White House of Old Lyme. One day Pirandello came to 
see him. They sent me a letter, signed by all of them. They 
understood each other from the first. "When he winks at you 
so gently you feel how well he understands you,** Elsa wrote. 
I could imagine Pirandello's eyes, both penetrating and 
weary, occasionally lit up by a sudden gleam. They were 
candid eyes, the eyes of a tired child through which another 
man sometimes looked with a wise and cruel gaze. 

Elsa increased her efforts to surround her husband and 
daughter with every possible comfort and luxury. She was 
anxious about her nephew and about both her sons-in-law, 
who were waiting for their American visas and for whom a 
new life had to be built. The Einsteins bought a house in 
Princeton, on Mercer Street Builders worked at it all the 
summer. Elsa worried as to how they would get on in their 
absence. She was obsessed by perfection, as though she 
would have liked to make up to the living for her concentra- 
tion upon the dead. 

They returned to Princeton and the move to their new 
house began. The moving vans still stood at the door when 
Elsa felt a swelling in her eye. It was an edema on the retina. 
She realized at once that it was serious, but she went on super- 
vising the installation for several days. She believed that no 

238 



one but she could find his way in the labyrinth of dismantled 
furniture which they had been able to rescue from Berlin. 

The New York oculist confirmed Elsa's presentiment. The 
accident to the eye was only a symptom of a serious disease 
of the kidneys and the heart. But she refused to go to the 
hospital in New York. She did not want to part with Albert, 
or with this home where she had at last been able to collect 
the scattered pieces of her life. She was surrounded with 
great care. Her family concealed from her the diagnosis of t^e 
doctor and she in her turn concealed from them the serious- 
ness of her condition. Margot went to spend a few days in New 
York. Her mother telephoned her every day to reassure her 
and urge her to prolong her visit. When she returned home, 
Margot found her mother so changed that she almost fainted. 
"Yes, it looked grim," said Albert; "she almost let out the 
secret. 5 * He could still joke, but his eyes never lost their look 
of anxiety and he was very pale. 

She underwent a drastic cure that demanded total immo- 
bility. After a few weeks she broke her doctor's regulations 
and dictated in a whisper a long letter to me. Though inca- 
pacitated by her illness, she never stopped worrying about 
her family. The lovely house that she wanted to set up for 
them was now living under the shadow of her illness. That 
was one of her principal regrets. She was also distressed to 
be unable to do anything for those members of the family 
who were coming to America. She could not bear to fail in 
the responsibilities she had assumed. 

The doctors noticed an improvement in her condition. She 
was making plans, those tentative plans made by people 
seriously ill. But I do not think she had any illusions as to her 
condition, A sentence had slipped into the long letter, a sen- 

239 



tence that chilled my blood. TE so much want to speak to 
you. Do try to come. But don't delay your arrival for too 
long, so we may still be able to meet." 

I wanted to go at once, but Margot wrote that her mother's 
condition was not hopeless. She also said that she feared that 
my arrival might upset Elsa too much. There was, in fact, a 
halt in the progress of the disease. I had a letter from her. It 
was the first that she was able to write herself, with one eye 
closed, and her hand trembling, as she outlined one letter 
after the other. ^This trembling," she wrote, "is part of the 
'general picture of the disease/ What a pompous phrase!" 

But she spoke chiefly of her husband, of his concern about 
her, his preoccupation on her account. "He has been so upset 
by my illness. He wanders about like a lost soul. I never 
thought he loved me so much. And that comforts me." Not 
even her illness had given her that sense of importance that 
invalids often get, which makes them think they are the cen- 
ter of the universe. On the contrary, she showed more than 
ever that strange humility so characteristic of her. 

Albert's fifty-seventh birthday was approaching. She spoke 
of the magnificent richness of his work. "He is in very good 
form. He has accomplished a lot lately. He himself believes 
his ktest work to be the best he has ever done." 

This was almost Elsa's last message. Her last days were 
brightened by a great hope. Albert Einstein had rented a 
lovely house for the summer, two hours from Montreal. Elsa 
felt better. Everybody said she would recover in this house 
at Saranac Lake, where Albert Einstein once more returned 
to his beloved sailboats. She was delighted at the idea of the 
journey, as though hoping that new horizons and surround- 
ings would change the dismal trend of her thoughts. In her 

240 



last letter she told me: "I am certain to get better there. If 
my lisa walked into the room now, I would recover at once." 
In fact she survived her daughter by only two years. I do 
not know what the doctor's diagnosis was, but I know that 
she died from the cruel conflict between her passionate 
motherhood and her love for her husband. 



241 



Chapter XIII 



"IN THE flash of lightning that lights up our stormy sky, 
men and things appear in all their nakedness/* Albert Ein- 
stein wrote in 1933. "Nations and human beings clearly re- 
veal their designs, their strengths and weaknesses, and their 
passions too. Routine and conventions have become mean- 
ingless in these rapidly changing conditions.'* 

Men and nations were, indeed, to show what they were 
worth in this hour of trial. Einstein knew he had known it 
from the start that the seizure of Germany by the Nazis was 
not merely a deplorable, ephemeral incident; nor was it a 
purely internal movement, as fascism pretended to be for a 
time. He knew that fundamental human values were in dan- 
ger and he also knew that people were far from realizing 
this danger. Their blindness alarmed him. He was also 
alarmed by the absence of the most elementary reaction 
against injustice the reaction that is man's only protection 
against a return to barbarism. This absence of reaction meant 
not only more or less deliberate, more or less selfish blind- 

243 



ness, but also sympathy with the methods employed, a nos- 
talgia for order, even if based on violence. He knew how 
deceitful and how pernicious arguments based on the fatality 
of evolution could be, and he often quoted Lorentz* reply 
when he was told during the First World War that in history 
force had always triumphed over right. "I cannot refute the 
truth of your argument, but I know that I would not care to 
live in such a world.** 

In the decisive years when Nazism was still progressing 
slowly, when persecutions were executed by installments and 
seemed to affect only a small ethnic and political group, 
when the victims of tomorrow were still able to say: "This 
does not concern me, only my neighbor/* the world also was 
becoming accustomed, by installments, to moral decadence. 

For Einstein it was the beginning of a great problem of 
conscience that he shared with many others. How should 
he react against this decadence, and what would be the con- 
sequences of his reaction? His problem was different from 
that of many Jews, uneasy about their Jewishness, wondering 
whether their reactions were conditioned by resentment, 
emotion, or the fear of tomorrow. Some of them even thought 
it necessary to show sublime impartiality, which may have 
been only another symptom of their inner uncertainty. For 
Albert Einstein, though he knew that anything he said would 
appear suspect from the very fact that he was a Jew, that 
problem did not exist. He saw anti-Semitism in its historic 
role as a catalyst of rancors, and described it as a "process by 
which hatred of a given individual or group is diverted to- 
ward another individual or another group, who are incapable 
of adequately defending themselves.** 

Neither did the problem of identification exist for him, 

244 - 



as it was absolute and total. "It should be the concern of 
every Jew when another Jew is hated or treated unjustly 
anywhere/* Einstein never accepted the idea that he should 
be treated differently, the attitude adopted by more or less 
secret anti-Semites in regard to Jews "of quality" or to those 
among their Jewish friends who were "different from the 
others.** At the moment of crisis the most humble of the per- 
secuted Jews was his brother. He realized the contagious 
character of a movement which, owing to the apathy of the 
world, was able to spread so widely and acquire such vio- 
lence. In 1934 he recalled this fact to all the Jews who, de- 
luded by the apparent stability of democratic institutions, 
believed themselves to be safe. "Such diseases and neurotic 
disorders in the minds of nations are not kept at bay by 
oceans or national frontiers, but develop in the same way as 
economic crises and epidemics.** 

But if anti-Semitism, even on a universal scale, was merely 
a diversion of hatred and rancor, it was also a means and not 
an end. The most burning problem for many Jews and non- 
Jews at that moment was the choice of the lesser evil. Even 
those who deplored the havoc caused by German anti-Sem- 
itism, who criticized the persecutions and sympathized with 
the victims, asked themselves whether the maintenance of 
peace in the world was not worth the sacrifice however re- 
grettable it might be of an ethnic minority. Einstein never 
envisaged this aspect of the problem. Like some other clear- 
minded men in those early days, he knew that there was no 
question of choice, that every sacrifice and capitulation was 
only a prelude to heavier sacrifices and more shameful capit- 
ulations. From 1933 only one question haunted him: How 
can Europe be saved from disaster? He was involved in an 

245 



inner conflict when he replied to himself and to others: "We 
must even face battle when it becomes necessary to safe- 
guard law and human dignity.** In envisaging that possibil- 
ity, Einstein denied all his past, the main principle of his life 
the maintenance of peace. 

But the situation changed- It became more acute year after 
year, month after month, and made this battle unavoidable. 
When National Socialism first made its appearance in Ger- 
many, the mobilization of liberal ideas could have stopped 
it. In the following years, when Germany was rearming or at 
the time of the reoccupation of the demilitarized zone, a 
mere menace of military mobilization at worst an expedition 
on a small scale could have arrested Hitler. Perhaps even at 
the moment of the Anschluss Germany might have with- 
drawn before a concerted action of the Great Powers. But 
every sign of weakness, every concession, served to increase 
not only Germany's power but also its certainty of victory. 
"The pseudo success of political adventurers dazzled the rest 
of the world,'* Einstein admitted bitterly. 

He had gone to America in the hope of explaining to those 
who professed their attachment to democratic institutions 
what was taking place in Germany, but he came up against 
the shortsightedness that is born of prosperity, the lack of 
imagination that blinds men of good will to evil, and the con- 
federation of egotisms that paved Hitler's way throughout 
the world. As soon as he arrived in the United States he 
became the loudspeaker of the victims of persecution, a sort 
of unofficial ambassador of all those who had escaped, or 
could still escape, from the German hell as long as another 
country agreed to give them asylum. He tried to find jobs 
for his scientist friends at the universities, approached poli- 

246 - 



ticians, and tackled industrialists and bankers for financial 
guarantees. Mademoiselle Dukas, his secretary, spent most 
of her time typing letters of recommendation to various 
authorities concerning prominent intellectuals, or poor 
wretches waiting to be liberated. "There would be room for 
innumerable refugees on this continent/* wrote Elsa, <c but 
the Jews here are opposed to it; it is the replica of what once 
happened in Germany when the Eastern Jews invaded it/* 

But the number of victims grew, the persecutions brought 
new floods of refugees Jews as well as non-Jews, particu- 
larly in the countries adjacent to Germany. The problem 
became too vast for charity institutions, for national organi- 
zations. Einstein tried to solve it on a world scale. He dis- 
cussed the matter at length with influential Americans, he 
pleaded for the victims with the emotional force character- 
istic of him and the competence of a man who had seen 
individual disasters with his own eyes and pondered over a 
solution. The response he got sounded promising. But the 
results were mediocre. The insidious influence of the Third 
Reich prevented any large-scale operations. "Nazi propa- 
ganda has gained a lot of ground here/* wrote Elsa. "One 
must admit that those people are very clever/* Einstein's 
hopes were now concentrated on President Roosevelt. The 
first interview with him left a deep impression because of the 
understanding he found, the direct and human approach 
with which Roosevelt always charmed anyone who came to 
see him. Einstein felt that this was the man capable of influ- 
encing the destiny of his country and thus causing America 
to influence the destiny of the world. 

Convinced that the monstrous Nazi machine that had been 
set in movement would inevitably lead to war, Einstein was 

247 



alarmed to see the democracies so ill prepared for an armed 
conflict. Their reluctance to realize the importance of what 
was at stake was not simply a proof of selfishness or lazy 
conscience but an expression of the same horror of war that 
he had once tried to awaken in all hearts, the gospel of paci- 
fism which he had preached. In adapting his ideas to a 
changed world, and so repudiating his own past, Einstein 
had to break with many of his pacifist friends, who did not 
realize that their enemy was now a different one, that their 
efforts were mistaken in their goal. Some of them who never 
noticed the turning of the road were to follow their mistake 
to the end and supply the Nazis in the future with uncon- 
scious accomplices and even collaborators. War had lost 
nothing of its horror in Einstein's eyes. The barbarism of the 
massacre revolted him just as it had at the beginning of his 
conscious life. But something different was now at stake, 
something even more precious than life, "that one wished 
to see defended at any price." Death was no worse than this 
life of humiliation that is granted to the victims. 

If hatred of war was bom in Einstein from his love of life, 
if destruction appeared in all its horror because the world 
was so beautiful, the urge to live takes a different form in a 
world destroyed, in which the sources of life are contami- 
nated and the human being deprived of all that was divine 
in him. Conscious as he was of the change of values that had 
taken place, Einstein was reluctant to part with what had 
been, only a short time ago, the principal object of his life. 
He had to destroy what he had created and disappoint those 
who had followed him with such courage and at the price of 
such sacrifices in his battle against the idea of war. 

In the declarations he published in 1934, he whose frank- 

248 



ness was usually unequivocal, at times brutal spoke in a 
curiously embarrassed tone. But his conclusions were clear 
and definite. In totalitarian states the refusal to fight would 
mean martyrdom and death and be only an ineffective indi- 
vidual revolt which could be quickly suppressed, while in 
democratic countries this refusal would mean "a weakening 
of the power of resistance of those parts of the civilized 
world that have remained sane/* In taking this attitude, the 
only one he could take at this tragic hour for mankind, Ein- 
stein entered upon the principal tragedy of his life. He was 
still ignoring it when he wrote: "No reasonable being would 
today support a refusal of military service anyway, not in 
Europe, surrounded as it is at this moment with danger." He 
also said: "Other times, other measures,** and defined his new 
revised attitude as that of a hardened pacifist.** The destroy- 
ers of democracy, the future collaborators who navigated in 
troubled waters under the banner of pacifism, were to brand 
him, as they did other men of the same type, as a "war- 
monger.** 

When the Spanish war broke out he immediately under- 
stood its "dress rehearsal** character, that it was a trial of 
potential strengths. Einstein followed the vicissitudes of the 
struggle with passionate concentration. When Infeld an- 
nounced to him one day a Republican victory, his eyes lit up. 
"This sounds to me like 'Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,* ** he 
said, and Infeld was struck by the unaccustomed joy and 
emotion he showed. Einstein also realized that the policy of 
non-intervention, though compatible with democratic neu- 
trality and capable of success if it were tried out in the void 
like an experiment in a laboratory, encouraged international 
fascism and secured its future victory. He was distressed by 

249 



the weakness France showed in regard to the "menace facing 
the Republic from the south," and tried to discover its rea- 
sons. "The cause of this weakness seems to be chiefly the fear 
of British disapproval," he wrote to me, "though everyone 
ought to hiow that England will without any doubt come to 
their aid tinder any circumstances and not only for the sake 
of Marianne." 

The interest in international events shown by Einstein in 
these years put him in the limelight, often against his wish. 
His sense of responsibility, always acute, became even more 
so when so much individual distress surrounded him. He 
experienced the same guilt as does the sole survivor of a 
shipwreck the feeling that tormented Elsa when she 
thought their life too easy and comfortable. He did not want 
to refuse any of the demands showered upon him, however 
absurd they often were. People came to him for help in the 
name of great causes as well as of shattered lives. He and 
Thomas Mann, who was then at Princeton, started a cam- 
paign in favor of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the Ger- 
man pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who had been imprisoned 
and tortured by the Nazis. Einstein was prepared to do any- 
thing he considered useful, in ways he would not have tol- 
erated before. He made an appearance at a concert and was 
rather proud to have collected six thousand dollars for Jew- 
ish refugees. He seemed not to mind wasting his time, as 
though recognizing that every man in need had a right to it. 
He agreed, for example, to let an Emigre German painter 
paint his portrait when persuaded that this would add to the 
painter's prestige. 

His letters of recommendation lost their impact because 
they were too numerous. On one occasion he recommended 

250 



four radiologists for the same position in a hospital. Later, he 
was unable to understand that anyone could reproach him 
for this abuse of generosity: "Yes, I did recommend four 
radiologists, all for different reasons, which I explained. All 
they had to do was to make their choice among them, which, 
in fact, they did/* Sometimes mere poverty was sufficient to 
establish the claims of total strangers. He intervened for 
refugees not only in America but also with his friends in Eng- 
land and France. His disappointments were many, his mor- 
tifications often repeated. One day the French police found 
one of his letters of recommendation in the home of a quack 
doctor whom they had come to arrest. "His mother was in 
such despair when she came to see us," said Elsa. Sometimes 
Einstein, faced with a demand that was too brazen, exercised 
temporary caution, and people often remembered the excep- 
tional occasions on which he refused help, rather than the 
innumerable ones on which he gave it. 

In the turmoil that surrounded his name, recent resent- 
ments mingled with old jealousies, the voices of friends, or 
thwarted admirers, with those of his enemies. "Most of the 
time," said Einstein in a brief outline written in 1936 and 
called "My Portrait," "I act as my nature forces me to act." 
And he added: "It is embarrassing sometimes to be sur- 
rounded with so much respect and admiration, but there 
have been vicious darts flung at me too. They have never 
affected me, belonging as they did to a world with which I 
have -nothing in common." 

If Einstein, like so many others in those years, was forced 
to reshuffle his friends, he continued to be the target of at- 
tacks from the same side only the motives had changed. It 
was again the nationalists, the American isolationists who 

251 



had once pursued hi for his pacifism, who now reproached 
him for wanting to drag America into the war; it was the 
patriotic women who rose against him, because his appeals 
risked exposing their sons to death. 

In these years, in which his lucid mind foresaw the night- 
mare of the future, he repeated his warnings, although he 
knew them to be futile; these years were poisoned by the 
realization of his impotence; he became more and more of a 
recluse. The death of Elsa severed the strongest tie he ever 
had with a human being. Nobody knew, for he never men- 
tioned it, what this loss of the only companion of his life must 
have meant to him. It was as though a glass screen had sud- 
denly isolated him from the rest of mankind. He became at 
the same time more tangible and yet more inaccessible. 
When Elsa died it became clear how great her part of inter- 
mediary and interpreter had been, as though she had had the 
secret power to reach him by translating human language to 
him. He continued to live in the beautiful house that was 
Elsa's last work, in a way her testament the house she had 
dominated with her modest presence and in which she has 
remained alive until this day. 

Death kept creating a void around him the death of peo- 
ple dose to him in thought, like Painleve or Madame Curie. 
"It had been my good fortune," he wrote, "to be associated 
for more than twenty years with Madame Curie, associated 
in a cloudless friendship.'* Many of his friends, Austrian or 
German Jews, were dying self-inflicted deaths, victims of a 
barbarism which they had not the courage either to face or 
to flee. *lt so often happens now that men of high quality 
depart from this life of their own accord that we no longer 
find such an end surprising," he wrote with bitterness on 

- 252 



hearing about the suicide of one of his oldest friends, the 
physicist Paul Ehrenf est. In the tragic end of Ehrenf est an- 
other factor besides the devastating times played a part the 
inevitable conflict of two generations of thought, a conflict 
of conscience, as Einstein said, "which no university professor 
over fifty can escape in one way or another." He said this 
with resignation, for it was also his own conflict. 

The drama that had colored his life very early, at the mo- 
ment of his success and of his closest contact with contempo- 
rary science, became more accentuated in these years, taking 
on more and more of the accents of tragedy. It was not, 
however, the usual rift that takes pkce between a new gen- 
eration conscious of the audacity of its thought and an old 
man who remains a survival of the past and an obstacle on a 
path that leads toward the future. It was the case of an older 
man who, in spite of his years, persisted in continuing on his 
own way, which was becoming more and more deserted; for 
most of his friends, and all the young men around him, de- 
clared that the way led nowhere, and that he had strayed 
into a blind alley. This tragedy became all the greater be- 
cause the theories that were Einstein's starting point had 
ceased to be a little island accessible only to the initiated. 
Leopold Inf eld, remarking that in 1955 the theory of relativ- 
ity would be fifty years old, attacked the obsolete assumption 
that science was reserved for a few privileged minds, when 
he said that "Einstein would not have been one of the few 
who have influenced our century most strongly if his ideas 
on physics had been understood by only a few.** 

In 1950, when he wrote this, he declared that at least 
twenty-five of his students already had a considerable knowl- 
edge of the theory of relativity. Einstein's peculiar position 

- 253 



became more acutely controversial because in the process of 
his separation from the present generation of physicists the 
new generation caught up with what he had done up till 
then. Owing to this, Einstein's influence on the contempo- 
rary development of the quantum theory became almost 
negligible. This was how Inf eld explained the contradiction 
between Einstein's past and present: "The static character of 
the quantum theory is regarded by many physicists as essen- 
tial and it seems to them very unlikely that it will change 
in the future. Einstein is almost isolated in his belief that it 
will" 

Prince Louis de Broglie, speaking of the innumerable at- 
tempts made in recent years to complete the general theory 
of relativity and transform it into a unified one, capable of 
explaining at the same time the existence of forces of gravi- 
tation and electromagnetic forces, noted that the efforts 
Einstein himself pursued for more than twenty years had not 
met with any decisive success, in spite of their incontrovert- 
ible importance, and that they were landmarks on a road 
that had not yet been cleared. 

Max Born pointed to Einstein's aversion to modern phys- 
ics; he recalled the objections he raised against wave me- 
chanics, and added: "Remarkable investigations have paved 
the way toward a new micromechanics, which physics at 
large has accepted today, while Einstein himself stands aloof, 
critical, skeptical, and hoping that this episode may pass and 
physics return to classical principles/' 

Albert Einstein, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 
examined in detail the criticisms of his obstinate desire to 
pursue his own way, in disagreement with modern physics. 
He replied to Max Born and to Wolfgang Pauli, both of 

254 



whom had deplored his negative attitude to the quantum 
theory. He declared that he fully appreciated the contribu- 
tion made by the statistical theory of the quantum to the 
progress of theoretical physics. ""What does not satisfy me in 
this theory/* he explained, "from the standpoint of principle, 
is its attitude toward what to me appears to be the program 
and the aim of all physics: the complete description of any 
real (individual) physical situation (as it supposedly exists, 
irrespective of any act of observation or substantiation)/* 

Einstein has a way of seeing both sides of every question 
and, when he is writing, appears to hear the objections his 
point of view is bound to raise, and to confront the opponents 
of his ideas. "Whenever a modern physicist, with positivist 
tendencies, hears a formula of this kind, his reaction is a pity- 
ing smile. He says to himself: Here is expressed quite plainly 
a metaphysical prejudice, void of all content, a prejudice 
indeed whose conquest has been the main epistemological 
achievement of physicists during the last quarter of a cen- 
tury. Has any man ever conceived a 'real physical* situation? 
Is it possible that any reasonable person should still believe 
today that he can refute our fundamental knowledge and 
understanding by conjuring up this bloodless ghost?" After 
this long imaginary conversation, Einstein came to the fol- 
lowing conclusion: '"Within the framework of the statistical 
theory of the quantum, there is no such thing as a descrip- 
tion of an individual system . . . ; but if one accepts the in- 
terpretation that this description refers to a group of systems 
and not to individual ones, all the 'skating on thfn ice* that 
is performed in order to avoid the 'physically real* becomes 
superfluous.** In examining the differences of opinion that 
separated him from his colleagues and friends, he f ound that 

255 



most of the reasons were psychological. He declared that, ac- 
cording to his long-established conviction, theoretical physics 
would, after a lengthy and difficult path, develop in the sense 
that the statistical theory of the quantum would take, within 
the framework of future physics, position approximately 
analogous to that held by statistical mechanics within the 
framework of classical mechanics. 

He then resumed his imaginary dialogue and made his 
opponent, the theoretician of the quantum, say: ''True, I 
admit that the theoretical description of the quantum is an 
incomplete description of the individual system. I will even 
go so for as to admit that in principle a complete theoretical 
description is conceivable. But I consider as established that 
the search for such a complete description is unnecessary and 
pointless, because the order of nature is such that laws can be 
formulated within the framework of our incomplete descrip- 
tion." Einstein, as opposed to this theoretician, was not satis- 
fied with this incomplete description. He believed that the 
research that he was pursuing and for which he was being 
reproached might one day complete it. He stated, in his 
Preliminary Notes on Fundamental Concepts," which he 
contributed to the publication in honor of Prince Louis de 
Broglie's seventieth |fthday: "My efforts to complete the 
theory of general relativity by a generalization of the equa- 
tions of gravitation have their origin partly in the hypothesis 
that a rational field theory in general relativity would per- 
haps one day provide the key to a complete quantum theory." 
But he added at once: "It is but a modest hope, in no way a 
conviction." 

For many years Einstein, first alone, then with Inf eld's col- 
laboration, worked at a complement to the theory of rela- 

256 




EIXSTEIX SAILING ON THE LAKE AT CAPUTH 

". . . wearing sandals and an old sweater, his hair ruffling in the 

breeze." 




EINSTEIN AND LEOPOLD INFELD IN THE STUDY AT PRINCETON 

**. . . one of the few who have influenced our century most strongly." 




EINSTEIN IN HIS STUDY AT PRINCETON, 1938 
"We are very happy here-perhaps too happy." 



tivity, the movement of double stars. The aim of this work 
was to gain better understanding of the laws of movement 
and to f ormulate them more completely and logically than in 
Newtonian mechanics. The problem was purely abstract, 
without any practical importance. As Infeld pointed out: 
"For three years I concentrated on double stars without ever 
having seen one." More years of hard work were to go by 
before a theory was ekborated which seemed logically satis- 
factory to Einstein. 

Such partial successes and confirmations of bold ideas 
formulated in the past as, for instance, the experiment of H. 
E. Ives in the Bell Telephone laboratory in 1936, which con- 
stituted, according to one of Einstein's biographers, * a star- 
tling proof* of the delay in intervals of time, may have en- 
couraged Einstein, but the principal source from which he 
drew his obstinate determination was surely the magnitude 
of the goal he pursued. The theory of the unified field was 
the most ambitious his imagination had conceived. One of his 
biographers, Lincoln Barnett, described its immense impor- 
tance in these words: ". . . it promulgates a set of universal 
laws designed to encompass not only the boundless gravita- 
tional and electromagnetic fields of interstellar space but also 
the tiny, terrible field inside the atom ... In its vast cosmic 
picture . . . the abyss between macrocosmos and microcos- 
mos the very big and the very little will be bridged. . . .* 
The complex totality of the universe would thus be resolved 
in one homogeneous movement in which matter and universe 
could not be distinguished the one from the other. All forms 
of movement, from the slow wheeling movements of the 
galaxy of stars to the rapid flight of electrons, would appear 

2ST 



simply as modifications of the structure and degree of con- 
centration of the original field. 

Albert Einstein has himself revealed the nature of the 
power that stimulated his efforts, his search for perfection 
and his longing for the absolute. In a long essay, "Founda- 
tions of Physics,'* written in 1940, he said: "Some physicists, 
of whom I am one, cannot believe that we should accept the 
idea that the rules of nature are like those of a game of 
chance. Every man is allowed to choose the direction of his 
effort and can draw consolation from the beautiful motto of 
Lessing that the search for truth is more valuable than its 
possession.** 

No disappointment could make him reconcile himself to 
an accessible imperfection. That does not mean that he was 
not often discouraged, or that he never knew the distress of 
those who have been disappointed in their own creative ef- 
forts, who have been led up a blind alley by their desire for 
perfection. Inf eld said in his book that Einstein himself, after 
having written so many papers, would now look on some of 
them as wrong or antiquated. He recalled this short and 
poignant dialogue that revealed the tragedy inherent in all 
human effort and which even the greatest brain of our times 
was not spared: "When I discussed this very problem with 
Einstein, he said to me: *Man has little chance/ ** 

Perhaps Einstein's real greatness is best illustrated by such 
an admission. If today he is isolated in his efforts, he is not 
the only one to be haunted by the longing for a perfect uni- 
verse. Andre George drew this comparison between Tiim and 
Louis de Broglie: "They both have a deep sense of the har- 
mony of universal kws, of the decisions that rule the world. 
They find it miraculous that it should be so, and that in the 

258 



light of our reason a human understanding of these cosmic 
secrets should not be impossible. There is something aes- 
thetic and almost religious in this feeling, in so far as it 
comes from these two great agnostics whose belief is not that 
man cannot and should not try to pierce the veiL" 

Einstein has expressed the individual character of his faith 
in one of those remarkable sentences of which he is such a 
master. Speaking of his divorce from contemporary theoreti- 
cal physics, he wrote to his friend Sommerfeld in 1944: "We 
have gone to opposite extremes in what concerns our scien- 
tific ideas, and in what we expect from science. You believe 
in a God who plays at dice, whereas I believe in perfect laws 
in a world of existing things, in so far as they are real, which 
I try to understand with wild speculation/* 

Einstein's friends often heard him utter this sentence: 
"God does not play at dice. 7 * It is the final belief of his life. 

This faith illumined for him the darkness that was then 
enveloping the world, that miserable time when everything 
seemed to be surrendering to arbitrary violence. His back- 
ground of eternal values gave hi the strength to resist the 
desolation of the present. "Science," he said, "is no more fh*m 
the purification of daily thoughts." Such a purification was 
particularly difficult in those years, but at the same time 
more and more necessary. It was no longer possible for a 
scientist to draw a definite line of demarcation between his 
research and his everyday life. "The critical attitude of the 
physicist cannot confine itself to an examination of concepts 
in his own sphere," he wrote. He claimed for the scientist the 
privileges hitherto reserved for the philosopher. The physicist 
"cannot go forward without examining from a critical point 
of view a much more difficult problem: the analysis of the 

- 259 



nature of daily thought** Under the pressure of events this 
physicist-philosopher is also forced to examine the moral prob- 
lem of our times, and discover the roots of the evil that is 
consuming it. What was the principal cause of this decay, 
Einstein wanted to know, of this victory of barbarous meth- 
ods in politics? For 'him it lay in the obvious decline in moral 
values. "It is the cult of success, rather than the value of 
things and men in relation to the moral end and to a human 
society, that now dominates everything in the press, as well 
as in education, with its system of competition.** The "moral 
degradation produced by an inhuman economic struggle** 
was added to the havoc wrought by this cult. Can a man con- 
scious of his moral responsibilities, really imbued with an 
ideal Einstein put these questions to Americans enjoy 
without self-reproach a privileged position, "a reward in for- 
tune and advantages superior to what other men have ever 
received 5 *? Can he remain outside the struggle for security 
because his country is at the moment secure from a military 
point of view? Can he remain indifferent to brutal persecu- 
tion, to robbery, and to the massacre of innocents? It was the 
moral wealoiess of the unconcerned and the indifferent which 
"together with the terrific efficacity of the new technical 
methods of battle,** encouraged barbarous proceedings and 
made of them a "terrible menace to the civilized world." 

Einstein felt this menace so intensely, so clearly, that it 
"throws a shadow upon every hour of my present life,** he 
wrote in 1939. He wrote this on his sixtieth birthday, re- 
membering the summary of his concept of the world written 
ten years before. "What I wrote then seems in its essence as 
true as ever, but it seems nevertheless strange and remote.** 
How could that be possible? lie wondered. Had the world 

260 - 



changed so profoundly in the course of ten years, or was it 
because he was ten years older and saw everything in a 
darker light? What were ten years in the life of humanity? 
but these were "ten ominous years." Man's cultural inherit- 
ance had been threatened and his sense of stability had van- 
ished: "The conscious man has, no doubt, at all times realized 
that life is an adventure, that it has to be ceaselessly torn 
from the clutches of death." But today the whole of human 
society was in danger. 

In examining the last ten years in this way, Einstein antic- 
ipated a future that still seemed remote. The peace of the 
world in this spring of 1939 did not appear to be threatened 
any more than it had been only too often in recent years. 
Lazy consciences had acquired the habit of believing that 
danger could always be warded off at the eleventh hour. The 
men who were dying were far away. Hitler's massacres were 
far away, and far away too the Jewish pogroms. Nightmares 
vanished quickly under the influence of a summer sky. Po- 
land was as far away as Czechoslovakia had once been. Why 
die for Danzig if one did not die for Prague? Yes, the reprieve 
could last forever. 

Something happened during that summer of precarious 
peace, a peace balanced between inertia and violence: it was 
something so insignificant on the surface that even had it not 
been very secret it would have passed unnoticed. It was, 
however, an event of incalculable importance. Einstein was 
visited in July by an migr6 physicist. The refugee scientists 
in America were among his most frequent visitors. The Hun- 
garian Leo Szilard, formerly of Berlin, now professor at Co- 
lumbia University, had received an introduction to Einstein 
through a compatriot, also a physicist at Princeton Univer- 

261 



sity. He had, like so many visitors before and after him, a 
manuscript he wanted to submit to the great man. All the 
circumstances surrounding this interview were ordinary and 
conventional. But at the very moment when Einstein faced 
his questioner and examined the contents of the manuscript, 
the world was on the verge of a change. 

Thirty-four years had gone by since the young employee 
at the Bern Patent Office had published his five papers in the 
Year Book of Physics. One of these papers made a mark upon 
his time, but another one foretold the future revolution of 
the world. In the eyes of the uninitiated this prophecy looked 
like just another harmless equation. In the future the repeti- 
tions and popularizations of the press were to make the pub- 
lic familiar with it. This brief formula: "E=mc?" was to be 
endowed with a magic quality, something like the signs 
Faust used to draw to conjure up the Evil One. And, in fact, 
like those magical signs, it unleashed the forces of hell. 

In itself, however, it only established a relation between 
mass and energy; E being the energy contained in a body at 
repose, m its mass, and c representing the speed of light, 
about 186,300 miles a second. The equation opened up the 
possibility of liberating unsuspected forces. Later Einstein 
was asked how it was that it had not been noticed before that 
every ounce of matter contains such prodigious energy. "The 
answer is quite simple," declared Einstein; "energy cannot 
be observed unless it is exteriorized." And he added this pic- 
turesque comparison: *Tf a fabulously rich man never spends 
any money, no one can estimate the size of his fortune." Ein- 
stein's formula not only upset all static laws, it also defied 
the order of the world of yesterday, the world of classical 
concepts, in which nature never takes leaps. Now the leaps 

262 * 



of nature had become unpredictable. An infinite perspective 
o a new order o things was opened up. 

As contemporary science pounced upon it, scientists in 
every country were sent out in search of miracles. The imagi- 
nation of the world was stirred. On the eve of the First World 
War, H. G. Wells published a prophetic novel in which he 
described the effect of an atomic bomb falling on Paris. But 
Einstein himself, as he declared later, believed only in the 
"theoretical possibility of the liberation of atomic energy/* 
He did not in the least foresee that it might be liberated in 
his time. But the fantastic nature of this theoretical possibil- 
ity which he envisaged stimulated all minds as no other idea 
had done before. 

In 1935, in the speech made at the awarding of the Nobel 
Prize, Frederic Joliot declared that on the strength of increas- 
ing progress achieved by science we were justified in think- 
ing that research workers, building and breaking elements at 
their will, would be able to realize transmutations of explo- 
sive character, real chemical chain reactions, and that the 
enormous liberation of available energy would take place. 

According to Einstein, it was an accident that finally 
brought about the success of their research. The discovery 
took place in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, formerly familiar 
to Albert Einstein. A man and a woman who had worked 
together for twenty years, the chemist Otto Haho, and Lise 
Meitner, were employed in an experiment which was to 
prove the theory put forward by Hahn and Strassman 
namely, that the core of the uranium atom entering into 
collision with a neutron could disintegrate into two radio- 
active parts. Suddenly the atom disintegrated before their 
eyes. An element emerged in the process, barium, the pres- 

263 - 



ence of which Hahn could not explain at the moment. They 
both wondered whether there had been some mistake in 
their experiment. Perhaps the explanation already dawned 
then, more or less consciously, upon Use Meitner, that re- 
markable woman whom Einstein used to call "our Madame 
Curie." Perhaps she was too absorbed by what was happen- 
ing in her personal life to give the explanation more thought, 
to estimate the importance of this liberation of atomic 
energy. The Third Reich had discovered that Lise Meitner, 
not being fully Ayran, was not wanted in the sanctuary of 
national research. However, she managed to leave. She set 
off abroad, quite alone a woman past her first youth for 
whom research was the principal object of life. She never 
suspected that she was traveling toward fame, but she car- 
ried with her her instinct and her secret knowledge. There 
was a kind of ironic justice in the fact that it should have 
been one of Hitler's victims, one whom he might have easily 
destroyed, that it should have been an Austrian whose coun- 
try he had only just overrun and sullied, who deprived him 
of the secret which might have given him unequaled power. 
Lise Meitner had, in fact, wrested a monstrous force from the 
hands of a monster. 

On her arrival in Stockholm, she learned through a letter 
from Hahn that the experiment had been successfully re- 
peated. She checked it herself once more and sat down to 
make a report for a scientific publication in which she gave 
all the details of the strange experiment. But she had seen at 
close quarters the machine of destruction that the master 
rape was erecting to dominate the world. She knew that the 
force unleashed in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute would sooner 
or kter let hell loose on humanity. Feeling that the whole 

264 



matter was extremely urgent, she wired to a friend a sci- 
entist in Copenhagen, Dr. O. R. Frisch and gave Trim the 
essential facts of the discovery. Dr. Frisch, son-in-law of the 
greatest atomic expert, Professor Niels Bohr of the University 
of Copenhagen, immediately realized the importance of the 
news. His father-in-law, who had already heard from Lise 
Meitner about the experiments taldng place in Berlin, was 
absent. He was in fact in America in conference with Albert 
Einstein in Princeton. Dr. Frisch repeated the experiment 
tried out in Berlin. He came to the same result. He and Lise 
Meitner decided to call the phenomenon "nuclear fission.* 9 
Thus a phrase was born and with it a science of the future. 

The news traveled with the speed of lightning. It crossed 
the sea to disturb the minds of those who understood its sig- 
nificance. Professor Bohr telegraphed it to Professor Enrico 
Fermi. 

The great Italian physicist was an anti-Fascist, also marked 
down to be one of Hitler's victims. Like Einstein, he had 
been forced to become an expatriate from his native land. He 
had worked for a long time at the disintegration of the atom, 
but, as one of his friends said later, at the moment when he 
was working at the experiments that were to lead to the 
atomic bomb, bombs were very far from his mind. Fermi and 
Bohr both verified Lise Meitner's calculations, and came to 
the same results. A conference of American atom scientists 
was then held at Columbia University, where Enrico Fermi 
had a Chair. They spent twenty-four hours in preparing the 
experiment On January 29 a group of tired and anxious 
men pressed a button. The experiment was conclusive. 

By a remarkable coincidence, three days before a con- 
ference of theoretical physicists, to discuss the latest research 

265 - 



into the possibility of disintegrating the atom, had taken 
place in Washington. Professor Bohr opened the conference. 
He was a tall, thickset man, with a massive head, a generous 
mouth, and bushy eyebrows over a pair of piercing eyes. 
He spoke in a low, deliberate voice with his hands, as usual, 
in his pockets. But what he said made the scientists present 
literally gasp for breath. Had the news been announced by 
anyone else, they would not have believed it. They felt that 
they were seeing the dawn of a new age. 

Four years later, Bohr, another prospective victim of the 
Nazis, succeeded in escaping in a sailboat from the occupiers 
of his country, who were to install in it a regime of terror. 

In that January of 1939 when the world, without knowing 
it, was living through its greatest upheaval, scientific thinkers 
could still join hands across the frontiers. Hahn and Strass- 
man published the details of their discovery. Joliot-Curie, 
still ignorant of what was happening in Denmark, tried the 
physical experiment and obtained the same results as those 
Hahn had achieved in his chemical one. He published his 
report on it at the end of January, whereas Frisch's experi- 
ment was not made public until two weeks later. The turmoil 
of this great sensation remained limited, however, to the 
scientific world. The events at the Washington conference 
had aroused interest in the United States. Asked to make a 
statement on the American radio, Professor Fenni gave a 
summary of his previous work, which had been made pos- 
sible by Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie's discovery of artifi- 
cial radioactivity, a discovery made, by a strange coinci- 
dence, in 1933, the year when Hitler came to power. The 
audience understood but little of these highly specialized 
explanations and lost interest in them completely when 

- 266 - 



Fermi concluded by saying that it was still impossible to fore- 
see whether the knowledge acquired on the inner structure 
of matter would have a practical importance or would remain 
in the domain of pure science. 

This "practical importance" was obviously very remote at 
the beginning of the year 1939. Professor Fermi had con- 
trived the slowing down of the neutrons, which allowed 
energy to be liberated with, the maximum of efficiency. But 
this "cosmic fire/* as the popularizers of nuclear physics 
called it, was not yet to be mastered by man. Experiments 
continued to be carried out in the silence of laboratories. 

According to the news that came from Berlin, Hitler had 
mobilized two hundred of the greatest German scientists to 
follow up Hahn's experiment, the importance of which they 
had finally realized from the echoes that came from abroad. 

There are many examples in the history of science of these 
races toward the solution of a mystery, or of simultaneous 
discoveries of something sensational. But there was some- 
thing ominous about these parallel experiments on the eve 
of a world war. What was the real inspiration of the scientific 
brains of America? Were they trying to gain time in the race 
with Germany to harness atomic energy? Was it a sense of 
danger, of rebellion, or of pity? Did their clear judgment 
spring from the sufferings they had endured and a premoni- 
tion of those the world was about to undergo? Above the 
scene of chaos, in the passionless world of scientific thought, 
a duel was fairing place betwen the participants in the com- 
ing war between the executioner and his victims. 

In the spring of the same year, Joliot-Curie and his assist- 
ants proved by experiment that the disintegration not only 
split the core of the atom in two parts but liberated supple- 

267 



mentaiy neutrons. Bohr, together with a physicist from 
Princeton, supplied the theoretical explanation of the nature 
of uranium which allowed specialists in nuclear physics to 
move toward the stage of practical realization. Professor 
Fermi pursued his experiments on the effective use of chain 
reactions. In the summer he succeeded, with his colleague at 
Columbia University, Leo Szilard, in mastering atomic 
energy, and the manuscript Szilard took to Princeton was the 
result of their research. It proved that it was possible to cap- 
ture and reduce to the size of a bomb the greatest force of 
destruction that the world had ever known. This result was 
outside the understanding of ordinary minds. It needed ex- 
ceptional sanction, and there was only one man with a great 
enough name to bring an adventure of such scope within the 
limits of the ordinary imagination. 

In normal times the results of a discovery of this sort, with- 
out precedent and as yet without means of control, would 
have been a long time in approaching realization. In normal 
times the Immense sum of money necessary for the first trials 
of verification could have been collected only with the help 
of wide publicity and long preparation. The troubled times 
of the birth of this discovery demanded absolute secrecy and 
exceptional measures to hasten its development. There was 
one man, and one man only, who, though completely igno- 
rant of nuclear physics, was quick to appreciate the language 
of the extraordinary: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When Leo 
Szilard tried to reach Einstein he knew that the latter was 
not only the person most competent to make a statement on 
the subject but also the only person capable of making him- 
self heard by the President of the United States. Everything, 
at that moment, except the reality of the disintegration of the 

268 



atom, was a game of chance, but a game on a universal scale. 

From an infinitely lofty sphere, the discussion on the thesis 
of Fermi and Szilard descended to the most opportune way 
of approaching Roosevelt: whether to solicit an interview or 
write a letter as if it had been a matter of a recommendation 
for a job or a personal request Never perhaps in the history 
of thought and action had a new era started under such 
matter-of-fact auspices. A conversation almost without wit- 
nesses, a plain sheet of paper; and the atomic era was born. 
We know even the exact date: August 2, 1939. 

After long discussion the wording of the letter that was 
to be handed to Roosevelt was agreed upon. This is approxi- 
mately how this letter that made history, history without 
precedent, ran: "The results of the research recently pursued 
by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, submitted to me in manuscript, 
have revealed that we may in the immediate future expect to 
find the element uranium capable of being transformed into 
a new and considerable source of energy. This new phenom- 
enon may also lead to the construction of excessively power- 
ful bombs. A single bomb of this type, transported by ship 
and allowed to explode in a port, could destroy the whole 
port and the surrounding territory." 

Separated from their context, from the urgency dictated 
by the occasion, from their link with ike bell that tollsnot 
the one that tolls now but the one that will toll later such 
words as "excessively powerful bombs," **the destruction of a 
port and its surroundings,*' ^destruction of so many lives," 
have a sinister sound. Einstein was perfectly aware of the 
tragedy that it should be he, the fervent pacifist, who had to 
sanction the most terrible weapon of war ever at man's dis- 
posal. But this tragedy was played out under the pressure of 



his knowledge, or rather of his premonition of the horror into 
which the world was to sink overnight. The parade of de- 
struction across Poland was to start the next month, the tanks 
would soon be rolling over France and hell would be let loose 
over England, and soon, too, the sealed trains would be de- 
parting with their cargoes of half -dead people and the smoke 
from crematorium chimneys would sully the sky. The incal- 
culable power of the atom could at any time fall into evil 
hands. Soon the adventure of the "heavy water * would start, 
the reserve of which was saved by the collaborators of Joliot- 
Curie from occupied France and taken to England: while 
the heroic battle raged on the ground and in the sky, while a 
madman shouted himself hoarse and mumbled his threats of 
secret weapons. What was actually taking place, at the be- 
ginning of that August, was a collision between a man, the 
most human of the species, and a beast, hidden behind a 
semblance of human features. 

Matter-of-fact as was the atmosphere in which this colli- 
sion took place, Einstein never tried to wriggle out of the 
terrible inner conflict that he underwent at the time. Later 
he often explained his own actions. "I do not consider myself 
as the father of the liberation of atomic energy. My part in 
this was quite indirect," he said to Raymond Swing in 1945. 

To tell the truth, there was nothing to guarantee the suc- 
cess of the step he then undertook. President Roosevelt might 
easily have disregarded the importance of Einstein's state- 
ment, which was, in fact, still only on the border of the pos- 
siblemaybe only the dream of a genius. If Roosevelt gave 
credit to his words, he might be swept away in the whirlwind 
of elections, the issue of which was uncertain. What if there 
should be no Roosevelt tomorrow? What if tomorrow the 

270 - 



U.S., guided by an isolationist President with, no interest in 
Europe, decided to remain outside the battle? One day Ein- 
stein's letter, grown yellow with time, would be found in 
some secret file, an insignificant paper like so many others 
forgotten in their "strictly confidential*' file. "In fact, I simply 
served as a mailbox. They brought me a letter and all I had 
to do was sign it/" said Einstein as we recalled that time 
several years later in his study in Princeton. The gray light 
that shone through the large bay window brought out the 
deep furrows on his face and the shadows under his eyes. 
Silence fell, full of unasked questions. 

Under the fire of the glance he threw at me, I said: "Still, 
you pressed the button. . . .** 

His glance turned away from me. It moved to the winding 
valley, to the green lawn with its group of trees that masked 
the horizon. And then Einstein, as though he was replying 
not to me but to the top of those old trees on which his 
glance lingered, said slowly, each word separate from the 
other: "Yes, I pressed the button." 



271 



Chapter XIV 



"THE war is won, but not the peace,** wrote Einstein at the 
end of the nightmare. "The world was promised freedom 
from fear; in fact fear has increased enormously since the end 
of the war. The world was promised freedom from want; but 
large parts of it are faced with starvation while others live in 
abundance." 

The balance sheet that he drew at the end of the war was 
a balance sheet of horror. He had lived far from the ordeals 
that had ravaged the countries of Europe which were occu- 
pied or attacked. But the victims of bombardments, the men 
and women tortured or dead, were not mere names or num- 
bers to him; he knew their faces and many of them were his 
friends. There had been a close tie between "him and Hilf er- 
ding and Breitscheid, the leaders of the German Socialist 
Party who were offered asylum in France and then delivered 
by the Vichy government police into title hands of the Ge- 
stapo. For him the spirit of a France that could make no pact 
with the enemy was represented by someone who was very 



dear to Trim Paul Langevin. The sinister names that the 
world can barely utter for horror Maidanek, Auschwitz, 
Buchenwald were familiar to him; they kept cropping up in 
the letters he received from the rare fugitives of many unfor- 
tunate families. Every name signified a living hell, the dread- 
ful death of a friend or a relation, the loss of someone near to 
Trim. His memories today are like a pilgrimage across a ceme- 
tery, a cemetery of horror, for it was almost with relief that 
he heard about those who died in their beds from a peaceful 
illness. 

"These last years," Einstein wrote to me at the end of the 
war, "have produced more evil than the most inveterate pes- 
simist could ever have imagined. But what is so strange is 
that our sense of justice and fair dealing should have been 
so impaired that the knowledge we have acquired of the 
roots of evil should not have had an educational effect." 

His revolt against evil and his indignation in the face of 
unkept promises were enhanced by his anxiety about the fu- 
ture. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was tried out in 
the desert of New Mexico near Alamogordo. The experiment 
was watched anxiously by all those in the secret. One of the 
official observers reported a conversation he had shortly be- 
fore the event with one of the atomic scientists. "They told 
me that they might not be able to arrest the explosion once 
they had allowed it to take place, that it was possible that 
it might go on and destroy the planet on which we live." But, 
he added with a sigh of resignation: TPossibly human experi- 
ence has been nothing but a mistake." 

All those who were present in that summer dawn at the ex- 
periment in the desert wondered, in fact, whether this was 
not the last hour of their lives. A great storm, followed by 

274 



torrential rain, raged throughout the night, as though heaven 
itself protested against the impudence of man. Certain parts 
of the bomb, assembled at the last moment, stuck. The dan- 
ger grew with every hour, with every minute. Then the lever 
of the infernal weapon was thrown by a robot. Suddenly 
there was a flash of light of unbelievable intensity, more 
dazzling than a midday sun, a golden, purple, violet-gray 
and blue light. Then there came a gust of wind, a gale that 
followed the flash and blew the observers near the shelter off 
their feet; and then the apocalyptic sound of many thunders, 
"the terrible, long, persistent rumble of the Last Judgment, 9 * 
as a general who was present described it, "a rumble that 
made the poor little humans realize that they were blasphem- 
ing in wanting to play with forces reserved until now to the 
All-Powerful." 

The war had come to an end in Europe. The victory of 
civilization was made certain at the moment when, according 
to Einstein, "the most revolutionary force was born since pre- 
historic man discovered fire." 

Einstein suggested that the capitulation of Japan should 
be secured by a warning about this secret weapon. He tried 
with all his persuasive powers to convince the authorities 
that it would be sufficient to carry out a demonstration in a 
deserted spot in front of representatives of the enemy in 
order to put an end to the war, without bloodshed. He was 
not the only one among those in the secret to protest against 
the actual use of the atomic weapon. As Chancellor of the 
University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, explained 
later, the Americans knew by then that the Russians were 
going to declare war on Japan, that the Japanese towns were 
devastated and the blockade operating efficiently, and that 

275 



consequently there was no necessity to use the bomb. But 
the man who might have listened to Einstein's advice, and to 
that of the scientists who shared his opinion, was gone, and 
the military advisers of President Truman did not believe 
that a warning by demonstration would be sufficient to make 
Japan capitulate. They argued that it was more humane to 
bombard a Japanese port than to conquer the enemy by in- 
vasion; they weighed the price of blood and balanced the 
lives of American and Japanese soldiers against the sacrifice 
of the population of a town. "Einstein openly questioned the 
opportunity and wisdom of an atomic bombardment of 
Japan," wrote Virgil Hinshaw. He replied to political and 
strategic arguments as follows: "Beside the realities of man's 
true desires and the realities of man's danger, what are the 
obsolete 'realities' of protocol and of 'military necessity*?" 

The decision to bombard Japanese towns seemed dictated 
by even less admissible motives. ""In fact," he said, "so much 
money has been spent on making the atomic bomb that it is 
necessary to demonstrate that these two billion dollars have 
not been spent in vain." He never knew who exactly gave the 
order to bomb Hiroshima. 

The dreadful menace was let loose on the world The 
lonely man in his study in Princeton was overwhelmed by 
the immensity of the disaster. He had seen on paper the cal- 
culations of the effect that would be produced, the letter he 
had signed had mentioned bombs, a port destroyed, a terri- 
tory devastated, but no human imagination could have en- 
visaged the hell that was described by eyewitnesses. Sixty 
thousand people died at Hiroshima. Clothes were torn off the 
calcified bodies by the force of the explosion. Under the 
dome of black dust that hung for a long time over the town, 

276 



the survivors scarlet, monstrously bloated, scorched, maimed 
died in horrible agony. The infernal fire that had consumed 
the town continued to smolder on the horizon. There was not 
a tree, not a blade of grass left on a vast carbonized area. 
People would go on dying for a long time in Hiroshima. "A 
brutal attack by radiation is a new phenomenon in medicine, 
known only since the explosion in Hiroshima. 9 * Even those 
who survived perished slowly lost their hair, became blind, 
and died of hemorrhages or infectious diseases which they 
could not fight without the help of the white blood corpuscles 
which had been destroyed, wrote the American scientist 
Gerald Wendt in his illuminating book on atomic energy. 

That August 6, 1945, was a dark day for humanity. "A sad 
day for us/* said the director of one of the laboratories that 
helped in the preparation of the bomb. "Let us hope that we 
haven't put dynamite into the hands of children.** A black 
day for Albert Einstein. He was now the prey of a bitter con- 
flict: it was a silent conflict, but from time to time he allowed 
parts of this painful soliloquy to appear in the press or the 
radio, through his journalist friends. In November 1945 he 
explained his point of view to Raymond Swing, whom he had 
known since 1922, when the latter as a journalist in Berlin 
had asked "him for an interview on the theory of relativity. 
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new prob- 
lem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solv- 
ing an existing one. One can say that it has affected us quan- 
titatively, not qualitatively. While there are sovereign nations 
with great power, war is inevitable.** 

At that moment there was still every reason to foster illu- 
sions. The solidarity of a common struggle seemed to have 
survived the end of the war; the division of the world into 

- 277 



two hostile blocs had not yet become apparent; the lassitude 
of the exhausted countries was confused with the certainty of 
peace. But Einstein with his usual clear judgment was not 
deceived: "When I say this, I am not trying to foretell when 
war will break out, all I am saying is that it cannot be 
avoided." And he added: "This was true before the atom 
bomb was made. All that has changed is the degree of the 
destructiveness of war." 

There is something like an attempt to elude the real ques- 
tion in these declarations; to minimize the new danger by 
linking it with the permanence of the old ones. But Einstein 
could not deceive himself for long; he never avoided respon- 
sibilities, either his own or those of others, particularly those 
that were not without precedent. "Physicists today are in a 
position similar to that of Alfred Nobel," he said. "Having 
invented the most powerful explosive ever known, Nobel, to 
atone for this and to relieve his conscience, established the 
Peace Prize. Now the physicists who have participated in 
forging the most formidable and dangerous weapon of all 
times are disturbed by the same feeling of responsibility, if 
not guilt.'* At that time he still said the physicists, but soon 
he was to say: "We have helped to create this weapon to 
prevent the enemies of the human race from doing so before 
us, for if they had, given the mentality of the Nazis, incon- 
ceivable destruction and the enslavement of the rest of the 
world would have resulted." There Einstein touched upon 
the real core of his tragedy. He told his friends confidentially, 
"Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in pro- 
ducing an atom bomb, I would not have lifted a finger. . . ." 
But how was he to know? When he was signing the letter to 
Roosevelt, he was convinced that the Germans were reaching 

- 278 



their goal. He knew that he was justified so far as his own 
conscience was concerned, but this did not alleviate his tor- 
ment. The anger of a man who had been duped surged up in 
him. **We placed this weapon in the hands of the American 
and British people** and it was deliberately that he said 
"people" "as trustees of humanity and fighters for peace and 
liberty. But so far we have seen no guarantee of peace, no 
guarantee of the liberties promised to nations in the Atlantic 
Charter." 

In the meantime, a great ideal died without ever having 
lived. Hitherto camouflaged dissensions appeared in broad 
daylight. The atomic bomb was a menace to the survival of 
humanity and by the next year, 1946, Einstein realized that 
"to avoid this menace has become the most urgent problem 
of our days." What were they to do, the scientists who were 
more or less responsible for introducing this peril? **We must 
never cease to warn, we must never relax in our efforts to 
make the nations of the world, and particularly their govern- 
ments, conscious of the inexpressible disaster which they are 
sure to provoke if they do not alter their attitude toward one 
another and toward the task of shaping the future." 

Convinced that he had this mission to accomplish, Albert 
Einstein found a meaning for the remainder of his life. 

When he appeared in front of the crowds whom he ad- 
dressed directly, or on television in front of millions of in- 
visible spectators, with the halo of gray hair around his tragic 
head, he looked like one of the great prophets of the Old 
Testament, proclaiming Jehovah's terrible wrath. But he was 
not only a voice nailing to heaven for revenge, he was also a 
realist who understood all the various national susceptibili- 
ties and ambitions and knew that it is not enough to throw 

279 



out warnings, however eloquent One must also offer a policy 
in exchange. In a struggle against a conspiracy of egotism, 
one must fight for a precise idea, a definite plan. This plan 
was the establishment of a world government. He set about 
it with such ardor that the memory of all the defeats suffered 
by supranational organizations in the past did not succeed in 
shaking him. He was no doubt fully conscious of the insur- 
mountable difficulties with which his plan would meet. If he 
persisted in propagating the idea, it was simply because he 
saw no other way **of eliminating the most terrible danger 
that man has ever had to face/' He knew also that "the aim of 
avoiding total destruction has a priority over any other/* 

The obstacles that were raised against the plan came from 
all the interested parties at the same time. In 1945 Einstein 
was still able to believe that the constitution of this world 
government to which the United States would confide the 
secret of the atom bomb could be negotiated <e by a single 
American, a single Englishman, and a single Russian'* and 
that the suspicion of the Russians might be dispelled suspi- 
cion caused by the fact that the secret of the atom bomb was 
concealed from them. But when he realized that the progress 
of the plan so dose to his heart was too slow a(nd when in 
1947 he tried to hasten it with an open letter to the United 
Nations, he was already aware that he would have t to contend 
with open hostility on the part of the Russians. In his letter 
to the United Nations, he outlined the reform of that inter- 
national organization. He demanded that the delegates to 
the United Nations should be true representatives of their 
people, elected directly by them and not designated by their 
governments, and responsible only to their voters. "We 
would thus be able to hope for more statesmen and fewer 

280 



diplomats," lie wrote. He also put forward an idea to which 
the Russians were particularly hostile: a proposal to increase 
the authority of the General Assembly by subordinating to it 
the Security Council, which was paralyzed by the veto. He 
demanded above all that the moral authority of the U.N. 
should be reinforced by bold decisions, such as taking the 
initiative in creating a world government Even if Russia 
were to refuse to participate but only after all the efforts to 
obtain her and her allies' co-operation had been attempted in 
all sincerity the other countries should act alone, forming 
faut e de mieux at least a partial world government. 

This letter provoked great indignation among the Russians. 
Four of the most eminent Soviet scientists, the physicist 
Vavilov, president of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 
the chemist Frumkin, Joffe, director of the Chemo-Physical 
Institute of the Leningrad Academy, and Semionov, the 
director of the Chemo-Physical Institute of the Moscow 
Academy, addressed in their turn an open letter to Einstein 
which was published in the New Times. They vehemently 
opposed the "mistaken ideas of Dr. Einstein," which they 
considered to be "positively prejudicial to the cause of peace 
which Einstein so warmly espouses." They reproached Tifm 
for playing into the hands of imperialists who used the idea 
of world government as "a screen for unlimited expansion" 
and who discredited the idea of national sovereignty in order 
to establish the world supremacy of capitalist monopolies. 
"It is an irony of fate," they wrote, "that Einstein should have 
virtually become the supporter of the schemes and ambitions 
of the bitterest enemies of peace and of international co- 
operation." The reform of the United Nations he proposed 
seemed to them as dangerous as his main project. At first 

281 



glance the election "by the people" which he suggested 
seemed progressive and even radical, they admitted, but they 
reminded him of the electioneering procedure, not only in 
the colonies or countries financially dominated by imperialist 
powers, but also in the United States, where "at the last eleo- 
tions to Congress only thirty-nine per cent of the voters went 
to the polls'* and where millions of Negroes in the Southern- 
states were virtually deprived of the right to vote. The idea^ 
of reinforcing the General Assembly at the expense of the 
Security Council was, in their opinion, nothing but "a desire 
to transform the United Nations into a branch of the State 
Department." They deplored that a man so respected as 3. 
scientist and so deeply imbued with public spirit should have 
allowed himself to be lured away by the mirage of a world 
government. An argument started in which old grievances 
and past dissensions were dragged up, far beyond the discus- 
sion of the moment 

Einstein's theories, or more correctly their philosophical 
interpretation, whose incoherence was attributed to the in- 
fluence of the philosopher Mach, had raised bitter contro- 
versy in Soviet Russia. This at the very moment when in 
Germany the extreme right newspapers, forerunners of 
Nazism, had attacked his "bolshevik physics'* for being as 
damaging to the mind of a German scientist as the Marxist 
doctrine is to that of a worker. But ideological and political 
considerations had been swept away by the respect for the 
scientist whom the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia proclaimed 
"the greatest physicist of our times/' Einstein had been re- 
peatedly invited to visit the U.S.S.R., but had continually 
refused to accept an official invitation, as though wishing to 
retain a complete independence in regard to the ideas which 

* 282 - 



German nationalism blamed him for propagating. But while 
abstaining from openly taking up a position, he did not 
avoid a discussion on matters of principle. He replied to 
American democrats who stressed the absence of liberty in 
Soviet Russia that this reign of a minority which they so 
deplored was a necessity for a nation deprived of political 
education and a country that lacked a majority capable of 
improving its disastrous conditions. Conditions of life in Rus- 
sia, according to him, were not, as he said to Raymond Swing 
in 1945, "a menace to the peace of the world in themselves." 
And he added as an afterthought: "Had I been born a Rus- 
sian I believe I could have adjusted myself to them." 

In his analysis of Einstein's social philosophy on the occa- 
sion of his seventieth birthday, Virgil Hinshaw also spoke 
of his attitude toward Soviet Russia. According to him, Ein- 
stein was not the kindly yet naive old man so many take 
hi-m to be in that matter. His attitude was more like that of 
the scientist Harold C. Urey, also a Nobel Prize winner and a 
friend of Einstein's, who had recently declared: "I can't help 
it if the Communists fellow-travel with me on the Spanish 
line. I don't fellow-travel with them." 

The attacks of Soviet scientists forced Einstein to give a 
clear definition of his attitude. He deplored the fact that the 
"cumbersome method of open letters" should have taken the 
place of a free and personal exchange of ideas, of the direct 
contact that creates an atmosphere of mutual understanding, 
but he appreciated the fact that his Russian colleagues had 
expressed their point of view with candor and without am- 
biguity; ^mutual comprehension is only possible if you make 
the effort to understand the thoughts, motives, and appre- 
hensions of your adversary so completely as to be able to see 

283 * 



the world through his eyes.** In the letter of the Soviet scien- 
tists, Einstein could see a defensive mentality which might 
lead to unlimited isolation. Seen through Russian eyes, this 
isolation was understandable after the suffering endured in 
recent years, the invasions, the foreign interventions, "the 
systematic campaign of calumny in the Western press and the 
support given to Hitler justified as an instrument to fight 
Russia." 

It was in view of this defensive attitude of the Russians 
that Einstein composed his reply, the reply of "a man who 
tries anxiously to find a possible solution without deluding 
himself that he knows 'the truth' or 'the right path/ " Ac- 
cused by the Russians of serving capitalist interests, he 
expounded the ideas he had always held namely, that capi- 
talism, or, to speak more correctly, the system of free enter- 
prise, never had been and never would be capable of main- 
taining a healthy balance between production and the 
buying capacity of the people, or of checking unemployment, 
and he added: "The day will come when all nations (inas- 
much as such nations will still exist) will be grateful to Russia 
for having been the first to demonstrate tie practical pos- 
sibility of a planned economy." He criticized, however, the 
intolerance of fanatics who have made a sort of religion out 
of a social system and consider the "infidels" as traitors and 
evildoers. They were the same fanatics who, while passion- 
ately opposing anarchy in the economic sphere, became 
"equally passionate advocates of anarchy through unlimited 
sovereignty in the sphere of international politics." Einstein 
did not attempt to justify or even explain the policy of the 
American government since the end of the war. "One can- 
not deny, however," he wrote, "that the suggestions of the 

284 



American government concerning atomic weapons repre- 
sented at least an attempt to create a supranational security 
organization, that they could have at least served as a basis 
for discussion. It was in fact the attitude of the Soviet gov- 
ernment, partly negative, and partly dilatory, which rendered 
it so difficult for people of good will in this country to make 
use of their political influence as they would have wished 
to do, in order to oppose the 'warmongers.* ?> And after re- 
capitulating the arguments of the Soviet scientists with a 
calm that clashed with their passionate outburst, Einstein 
asked whether the differences of opinion expressed in their 
strange exchange of letters should not be considered as "in- 
significant trifles in comparison with the danger that we are 
all facing 9 * a danger without precedent in history. 

This note of alarm with which Einstein ended his letter 
was to be the leitmotiv of all his interventions in the future. 
In an article published at the beginning of 1946 in the New 
York Times,, he could still express hope for the survival of 
civilization, even after an atomic war would have destroyed 
two thirds of the inhabitants of the globe. His apprehensions 
increased as he saw the competition to find more and more 
powerful means of destruction develop. The desire of the 
United States to safeguard the secret of the atom bomb 
appeared to Tifm from the start a dangerous illusion; the 
refusal to declare it outside the law and the desire to use it as 
a political weapon, an almost unpardonable crime. After the 
end of the war he became convinced that the United States 
would not remain long in possession of the secret. "I know 
that it is considered that no other country has enough money 
to spend on the development of the atom bomb, a fact that is 
supposed to secure the secret for a long time," he told Ray- 

285 



mond Swing. "It is a frequent error in this country to measure 
things by their cost; it is the men and the material, the will 
to use them that counts, not the money/* In 1947 lie saw his 
prophecy on the eve of fulfillment: "As to the so-called secret 
of the atomic bomb, I expect that the Russians will have it, as 
a result of their own efforts, without much delay. The race 
toward total destruction is on. A race that might have been 
prevented/' 

Einstein's latent anger now burst out uncontrollably. To 
the arguments of those who declared that any understanding 
with the Russians was impossible under the present circum- 
stances, he replied in 1946 that no serious attempt in this 
sense had been made since the war. "It seems to me that it 
is exactly the opposite that has taken place/* he wrote. In a 
violent and bitter account he listed all of the things which 
he felt had been done to increase the distrust of the Russians. 
It was not necessary to produce new atom bombs without a 
pause and allot twelve billion dollars in one year to defense 
measures when no military danger existed in the immediate 
future. "Not necessary either to defer the measures proposed 
against Franco's Spain, nor to introduce fascist Argentina to 
the United Nations in spite of the opposition of the U.S.S.R." 

The world was still far from an openly declared cold war. 
But Einstein saw the abyss grow not only with every year 
but almost with every day. Hostile to all nationalism, he 
feared, according to Virgil Hinshaw, the growth of nation- 
alism in the U.S.A. more than in the U.S.S.R., "because he 
observes among us a kind of mob hysteria unbecoming to a 
nation otherwise so great. He also feels that his reaction to 
our hysteria is more than justified by the fact of our techno- 
logical superiority over the Russians/* The result, according 

- 286 - 



to Hinshaw, is that in Einstein's opinion the guilt of the 
United States in regard to the present world situation is 
greater than that of Russia. "Being the more powerful nation, 
we are actually in control of the situation and if a crisis 
should arise we would be more culpable than the U.S.S.R." 
It was a bitter disappointment for Einstein to discover 
once again in the country of his adoptionthe country to 
which he owed so much because of the work it had made 
possible by relieving him of all material worries his eternal 
personal enemy, the militarist attitude of -mind. He found, as 
he said one day, Potsdam transported to Washington. It was, 
for America, a new attitude of mind. It had been born under 
the influence of two wars. Einstein described it by saying that 
"people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so 
aptly calls "naked power* far above all the other factors in- 
fluencing the relations among nations." He recalled how the 
Germans, misled by Bismarck's success, suffered the same 
transformation of mentality, "as a result of which they were 
totally ruined in less than a century." He criticized this mili- 
tarist state of mind with the penetration of someone who 
knows his personal enemy only too well, a state of mind that 
considers non-human factors like atom bombs, strategic 
bases, weapons of all sorts, raw materials, etc., as essential, 
but psychological factors, like men's desires and thoughts, 
as unimportant and secondary. He found that from the theo- 
retical point of view it had a similarity to Marxism. "The 
individual is degraded he is no more than an instrument, 
he becomes mere human material, he loses the normal im- 
pulses of human aspiration." This militarist attitude, accord- 
ing to him, demands the sacrifice of the civil rights of a 
citizen in favor of the state. "The political witch hunt, all 

287 



sorts of controls (for instance, of education, of research, of 
the press, etc. ) seem inevitable and do not, for that reason, 
meet with a resistance which, had it not been a matter of 
militaristic mentality, might have offered a protection." 

All this seemed in a way all too familiar to Albert Einstein, 
a nightmarish "has-been," which he had thought he would 
never see again. "I must frankly admit," he wrote in 1947, 
"that the foreign policy of the U.S. after the war often re- 
minded me, irresistibly, of Germany's attitude under Em- 
peror William II, and I know that apart from myself, many 
others have sorrowfully drawn the same comparison/* 

Together with this disappointment and anger, Einstein was 
overcome with fear. Since the production of the first atom 
bomb, the destructive power of war had increased immeasur- 
ably. At the end of 1946 the former Assistant Secretary of 
War, John McCloy, declared that the first bomb was still 
"primitive" and that according to specialists "it will be possi- 
ble to produce bombs ten times as powerful as the first." He 
also said: "If we use hydrogen as a source of energy we will 
have a bomb about one thousand times more powerful." 

In his book, Atomic Energy and the Hydrogen Bomb, 
Gerald Wendt wrote that it was a challenge to humanity, 
the most startling challenge since humanity had existed, and 
he added that if ever a hydrogen bomb were made it would 
be the most horrible invention of man, the very essence of 
evil. 

At the beginning of 1950 President Truman revealed that 
he had "ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to continue 
its research, particularly on what is called the hydrogen or 
the super-bomb." The Atomic Energy Commission had in its 
turn officially announced that it had submitted for study the 

- 288 



use of radioactive products to be dispersed in gigantic clouds 
by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, or scattered by air- 
planes. "This radioactive gas/* wrote Einstein, "that would 
spread over wide regions, would cause heavy losses without 
damaging buildings." From a military point of view, this 
method, wrote Wendt, "presented a particular advantage it 
only attacked lije? Buildings, machinery, electric stations 
would remain intact. Four scientists of the University of Chi- 
cago, among them -Leo Szilard (who had presented Einstein 
with the paper on the atom bomb), declared on the radio 
"'that it was possible to disperse in the air a quantity of radio- 
active dust sufficient to kill all the living beings on the earth.'* 
In fact, once this weapon was put in operation, one could not 
limit its destructive power. Another scientist present, Dr. 
Harrison Brown, confirmed this, saying: "We are thus arriv- 
ing at the paradoxical conclusion that it is easier to kifl the 
whole world than to. kill a certain number of people.** 

These new dangers aroused, especially among the un- 
informed, the fear of a chain reaction powerful enough to 
destroy a part or the whole of our planet. "But it is not 
necessary to imagine that the earth will be destroyed like a 
nova by a stellar explosion,** wrote Einstein, "in order to 
realize that if another war is not prevented it is probable that 
it will bring destruction on a scale that never seemed possible 
before, which even now is difficult to conceive and after 
which very little of our civilization would survive.** 

Einstein knew that the United States was in particular 
danger, more than any other country, "because of the vul- 
nerability of its concentrated industry and its highly devel- 
oped city life.** It was true, as Gerald Wendt wrote, that 
America had never envisaged that it might be attacked, 

- 289 



even less that it might be seriously harmed. That was made 
possible only because America had invented the atom bomb. 
Every increase of destructive power increased the danger 
to the United States. The hydrogen bomb, he added, instead 
of being their ultimate rampart, constituted a much more 
efficient weapon for the enemies of the United States than 
for the United States itself. 

American scientists, experts in nuclear physics, technicians 
engaged in research on new weapons, never ceased to warn 
the world of the nature of the danger it was running. Per- 
haps it was precisely its quality of an apocalyptic vision that 
made it surpass human imagination. The reaction to the in- 
conceivable is not panic but a kind of resigned apathy. 
Einstein was bewildered and disturbed by this phenomenon 
of general indifference. "Having been warned of the horrible 
nature of atomic war, people have done nothing against it 
and have even in a certain measure disregarded the warnings 
of their consciences/* He wondered what the reaction of the 
world would be if, for example, an epidemic of bubonic 
plague threatened it with extinction: experts would get to- 
gether at once and submit their plans to their governments, 
which would take immediate and general measures without 
considering whether their people might be spared while the 
neighboring ones perished. But there were passions which 
prevented people from reacting as they would to the threat 
of an epidemic. The real danger was the blindness caused 
by hatred. "The real problem is in the hearts of men/' said 
Einstein. Since the Hiroshima catastrophe he had not ceased 
to make appeals to governments and political rulers, to all 
those responsible for the decisions on which depended the 
destiny of the world. He knew that his voice was not heard. 

290 



When still president of the Emergency Committee of Atomic 
Scientists, lie supported the campaign which the Committee 
had launched with the following telegram: "Our world faces 
a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to 
make great decisions, good or evil. The unleashed power of 
the atom has changed everything, save our ways of thinking, 
and thus we drift toward an unparalleled catastrophe. A new 
way of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move 
toward higher levels." 

One should go beyond and above the rulers, the politicians, 
the defenders of powerful interests, in order to make the 
voice of reason heard. "In the final analysis," wrote Hioshaw, 
summing up Einstein's ideas, "the decisions of the U.N. rest 
on those made in village squares. It is to the village squares 
that facts on atomic energy must be carried." But fear and 
confusion reign also on village squares; there, too, the voice 
of reason is lost amid turmoil and violence* "The mentality 
of man, having grown accustomed to war, becomes corrupt; 
the result is that intelligent, objective human action has very 
little effect it falls beneath suspicion and is persecuted as 
anti-patriotic." 

Einstein felt that he, too, was under suspicion; his activities 
were hampered by a distrust which only his fame prevented 
from appearing too openly. He was often deeply discouraged 
and tormented by the feeling of his own helplessness. Some- 
times he despaired of man and his destiny. "It is easier to 
change the nature of plutonium than man's evil spirit." Many 
among those who had been close to him in thought now 
turned away, either from opportunism or because they were 
reduced to silence. This created a greater solitude around 
him and could not but increase his depression. 

291 * 



In December 1946 Langevin died of heart failure; his 
health had been failing after the ordeals of the occupation. 
"The news of Paul Langevin's death has been a greater shock 
to me than most of the events of the last years, so rich in 
disasters/* Einstein, so restrained in his expressions when 
they concerned his personal feelings, was moved as he had 
rarely been in his life. Accustomed to self -analysis, he tried 
to discover the reason for his deep distress. It could not be 
the feeling of an incompleted life or of a premature death 
that shocked him. Paul Langevin had lived to a great age; 
he had found satisfaction in his creative work; he was loved 
and respected; his life "appeared at the end as a work of 
art/* No, Einstein's sense of loss was a personal one. "The 
grief that the death of Paul Langevin has left me with is 
particularly poignant because I have the feeling now of being 
quite alone and deserted/* They had often explored side by 
side the same spheres of scientific thought. He spoke of his 
gifts: "A rare clarity and nimbleness of mind linked with an 
intuitive vision, very firm on essential points.** But it was 
above all the companion-in-arms that he missed in this 
critical hour. It was Langevin's generosity of heart that made 
him feel that his loss was irreparable, the generosity that 
made of him primarily an inspirer of others, limiting his 
own research to the stimulation of his disciples, "so that the 
fruit of his labor appears in the publications of other scien- 
tists more than it does in his own/* And it was to this man, 
with his good-natured, intelligent understanding of hu- 
manity, that Einstein was so deeply attached. "All his life, 
Paul Langevin suffered from an awareness of the deficiencies 
and iniquities of our social and economic institutions. But he 
believed in the power of reason and knowledge.** Though 

292 



more skeptical and cynical, Einstein felt very close to the 
man ''whose desire to help all men to enjoy a happier life 
was perhaps even greater than his desire for pure intellectual 
knowledge." They had many traits in common. "Nobody who 
appealed to his social conscience went away empty-handed." 
In those times of unrest and the deficiency of human thought, 
Einstein felt even closer to the public-spirited Langevin than 
he had when he had steeled himself against any interest in 
human beings and against all personal emotions. This appre- 
ciation of his dead friend was rather like an examination of 
conscience. "There are so few men in a generation who com- 
bine a clear understanding of the nature of things, an intense 
realization of truly humanitarian needs and the courage to 
fight for them." Like all real grief, Einstein's expressed itself 
in simple words: "When such a man goes, he leaves a void, 
unbearable for those who survive him." 

Einstein now lived almost like a recluse in Princeton. The 
town itself contributed to this. The train from New York 
crosses the hideous landscape of a modern metropolis of 
industry, with its gigantic chimneys belching black smoke 
which rises in the sky. Somewhere on its way the train stops 
on a shunting track. The train that winds its way on to 
Princeton has a suburban air and stops suddenly on a plot 
of green grass. It is the terminus of a journey that seems 
to lead not only beyond space but beyond time. The gray sky 
of that spring of 1948 gave to the Gothic buildings in gray 
stone the tarnished polish of a silver mirror. Against the 
walls and the sky, which merged together, the flowering 
bushes stood out as multicolored waterfalls, the trees a vivid 
yellow, a soft pink, an acid mauve, stretched out above, 
luminously, as though they held a hidden light imprisoned. 

293 - 



Somewhere a bell tolled, the strokes followed one another 
with a repeated echo. "There are so many bells ringing in 
Princeton/* Elsa once wrote to me. Perhaps one hears them 
more clearly because they are surrounded with a silence that 
seems as though the town is holding its breath, after New 
York. 

Public squares with children playing in them, parks, 
straight streets that seem to run on forever, lined with trees, 
passers-by who are in no hurry. This imitation of an English 
Gothic town, this stone effigy of Oxford or Cambrdge, re- 
minds one in some way of a seaside resort out of season: 
halfway between prosperity and neglect. Mercer Street is 
very long. No. 112 is a house like so many others in Prince- 
ton, in the parts farthest from the center. It has no style, no 
period, and only the large trees in the background seem to 
give it an individual character. 

Mademoiselle Dukas, appearing in the doorway, had not 
changed. Perhaps a little more energetic, more determined. 
I found Margot as frail as ever, the same sensitivity bringing 
shadows into her clear eyes. But the years had weighed 
heavily on Einstein. He came to meet me with a step in 
which I did not find the usual elasticity and silent movement. 
True, it was a long time since I had last seen him; there had 
been the years of exile, of war and mourning, in between. 
But I was struck by his appearance. He was not yet seventy, 
but his face was that of a great old man. His shoulders were 
still robust, his bare neck strong and round. But time had 
dug deep furrows on the plump cheeks, and the lips drooped 
at the corners, as though dragged down by bitterness. His 
high forehead was deeply wrinkled. Before, the wrinkles used 
to show only when he was plunged in deep thought, when 

294 



he was angry, or when he laughed. Now they had come 
to stay, darting in an irregular way from each side of the 
powerful bridge of his nose. The most moving change, how- 
ever, was in his eyes. The burning glance seemed to have 
singed the skin underneath, the mauve and brown shadows 
descended on the sallow cheeks, forming a strange pattern 
crossed by the bluish line of the lips. The fringe of white 
hair stood out as a luminous halo and created a background 
for the dark pools of his eyes. The hair was as wiry as ever, 
with that curious life of its own, but it was more vivid, more 
crisp, more like silver flames; the eyeballs had become hidden 
in the deep sockets, but the glance, the inextinguishable black 
fire, was just as glowing. The face, paler, might be consumed 
from within, undermined by sickness and suffering, the lines 
of torment might have left scars on a flesh that had no longer 
the same resilience, but his strength burst forth through the 
eyes and triumphed over everything that was in decline. This 
huge head had a remarkable power, a power purified, as it 
were, of everything fleshly. It was the head of a visionary re- 
mote from earthly contingencies. More than ever did one feel 
his presence to be "only on a temporary loan**; it was distress- 
ing to know it was precarious and threatened. But at the 
same time it had a greater reality; he was closer to the con- 
cerns of humanity, and more determined to survive. 

The large bare room which was his study provided a sober 
frame for this forceful personality. The walls were lined with 
books, manuscripts, volumes of reference, and there was a 
large, bare table in the middle, of dark wood, polished by 
time, which had long ago reflected the dull lights of the 
Haberlandstrasse. The bay window opened out on a long 
view, as though the room continued into the landscape, 



inviting the sky, the trees, the lawn, the valley to take their 
part in the thoughts of the recluse. Einstein's glance turned 
lovingly toward this view, as though to make sure that it 
still existed, that it had resisted the destructive will of man. 
But there is anguish, too, in this room. It seems to be Ein- 
stein's only companion silently questioning him. He spoke 
to me aloud, because I happened to be there, as he must, I 
am sure, have often talked to himself in a low voice. He spoke 
of Hiroshima, of the needless horror of that day. He spoke 
of the race toward destruction and everything done to ac- 
centuate it. He spoke of his personal experiences, of efforts 
undertaken in vain, of unheeded warnings. He spoke of 
man's folly, of his chosen blindness, of the fear of respon- 
sibilities that haunted humanity. When he spoke of some 
particularly disappointing conversation or absurd incident 
he burst out laughing, as he used to do when something 
incongruous tickled his sense of humor. But his laughter 
was harsh and abrupt. It did not come from the heart any 
longer it was a laughter that did not extend further than the 
lips. "Yes, I am very frightened/' he suddenly said, in a low 
voice. But instantly he threw his lowered head back, pulled 
himself up, and squared his shoulders as though bracing him- 
self against this fear that came over him. 

I spoke to him of a demonstration which I witnessed in 
New York in the Carnegie Hall, organized by an association 
called One World. He had been the winner of the first award 
and had been expected to appear- He had sent a message 
which a colleague read in his place. The message was un- 
equivocal. Einstein expressed his gratitude for the honor 
bestowed on him, expressed his sorrow "that we, who want 
peace and the triumph of reason, are forced to realize bitterly 

296 - 



how diminished is the influence that reason and good will 
exercise today on political events/* The hour was a critical 
one, an hour of decisions and consequences and he ex- 
plained their importance. "The plan to militarize the nation 
does not only present an immediate threat of war, it will 
slowly but surely destroy the democratic spirit and the dig- 
nity of the individual in our country. To say that external 
events force us to rearm is untrue; we must resist that view 
with all our strength. In fact, our own rearmament will create, 
through the reactions of other nations, precisely the situation 
on which the defenders of this view base their statements. 

I told Einstein about the indescribable, overwhelming en- 
thusiasm with which the crowd welcomed his message. He 
shook his head, resignedly: applause comes easily to Ameri- 
can audiences. 

But knowing as he did the temporary effect of his words, 
it did not discourage him. Only he spoke more rarely. He 
did not sign manifestoes with the same readiness and refused 
to add his name except in important cases. This spendthrift 
of generosity now restrained himself, and though he had 
often been reproached in the past for abusing the prestige of 
his name, this restraint gave me a pang, as though making me 
realize the measure of his renunciation. 

He was quickly aware of my thoughts, as he had often 
been in the past, before I had even put them into words: 
"At a decisive moment, you know, my voice will only have 
more weight. I am waiting for this critical moment to come. 
Then I will shout with all the strength left in me." The in- 
tensity he put in these words made me understand what this 
cry, launched into the world, would be like. I also under- 
stood that his resistance to grief and sickness, this struggle 

9.07 



with his own body and soul, were inspired by his decision 
to be heard when the time comes. His was the sort of power 
that husbands itself, and forces itself to survive in order to 
spend itself in one outcry. I believe I never realized fully 
the horror of the future until that moment when I saw Ein- 
stein's features harden in fierce determination, the dark fire 
of his eyes conscious of this hour of peril. A solitary man 
facing tie folly of the world. 

I walked down the steps, blinded and breathless. An old 
woman passed me in the hallway, with dragging feet and 
jerky gait, leaning heavily on the arm of a nurse. She dis- 
appeared behind a door that banged. I caught sight of a 
white face, with tragic features, very like those of Einstein's, 
and the same gray hair. I had forgotten about Einstein's sister 
Maya, who had come to stay with him, had had a cardiac 
attack, and been unable to go back. She lived in his house 
until she died. I had also forgotten how much she resembled 
him. In the twilight it seemed to me that I had seen a ghost 
goby. 

From the top of the stairs, Einstein waved his hand. He 
meant au revoir, but I knew it was good-by. 

The abyss between Einstein and his time became deeper 
and deeper the abyss between his sense of responsibility 
and the egotism of general indifference between his need 
of a spiritual order and the isolated, anarchic efforts of those 
who adapt themselves to the present confusion: "I have 
recently discussed the possibility of another war with a man 
both intelligent and kindhearted, of a war that would 
threaten the very existence of humanity, and I told him that 
I believed only a supranational organization could offer pro- 
tection against this danger," Einstein wrote in 1949, and 

298 



he continued: "To this my visitor replied calmly and coldly: 
*Why are you so earnestly opposed to the disappearance of 
the human race?* " Einstein was staggered. "1 am certain 
that a century ago nobody could have made such a remark 
so offhandedly." But such monstrous cynicism did not make 
Tifm indignant. He, for whom man became more and more 
transparent, who was used to seeing the world with the eyes 
of his enemies, knew what misery was hidden behind such 
exaggerated statements. The feeling they aroused in him 
was one of pity. Such a statement could only be made by a 
man who had vainly tried to achieve stability within himself 
and had more or less lost the hope of ever achieving it. It was 
an expression of infinite solitude and isolation which many 
men suffer in our days. 

In contrast to the neurosis of fear that becomes the nega- 
tion of all human solidarity, in contrast to these attempts at 
escape in order to avoid a common fate, Albert Einstein now 
feels an increasing identity with his fellow beings, the feeling 
of identity that creates revolutionaries and saints. Instead 
of the selfishness of old age which usually isolates the sur- 
vivors of another generation, he feels an increasing compas- 
sion for human errors, a tolerance like the serenity of the 
mystics. He recently said to Raymond Swing: "For me the 
essence of religion is to be able to get under the skin of an- 
other human being, to rejoice in his joy and suffer his pain." 

Albert Einstein was very ill in 1949. He underwent a seri- 
ous operation, so serious that there was great danger that he 
would not survive. He is forced to be more and more careful 
about his health. But under the mask of an old man whose 
resistance is constantly undermined by physical afflictions 
there still lives the same fierce strength preparing for a de- 

299 



cisive battle. In May 1949 lie said to Virgil Hinshaw: "Never 
do anything against your conscience even if the state de- 
mands it." He connected this imperative with the instructions 
from the Apostles: "Then Peter and the other apostles an- 
swered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men/* 

Einstein's principal source of energy, which allows him to 
defy the deterioration of his body, is the feeling of this 
mission that he has still to accomplish. It is the fire that feeds 
the flickering flame of his life, this mission he once defined 
as the task of being the vehicle of expression for the con- 
science of humanity. The man whose spiritual power has 
penetrated the widest domains of human speculation has 
given priority to ethics. "The moral qualities of great person- 
alities are perhaps more significant for a generation and for 
the course of history than purely intellectual accomplish- 
ments/' 

The universe of Albert Einstein is governed in the twilight 
of his life by this moral obligation. He submits to a force 
which he sometimes calls "reason displayed in life/* which 
in its more intimate depths is inaccessible to man. More and 
more often he calls it God. Not the personal and revengeful 
god of his ancestors, but the God of the supreme order of 
nature, who leaves nothing to chance. It is God who has 
given him the faith that made him persevere in his research, 
alone, and attacked even by those who were closest to him in 
thought. 

Posterity will judge whether the years of incessant effort, 
of defeats overcome, of patient and obstinate reconstruction, 
were in vain; it will judge whether the theory of the unified 
field represents the triumph of human spirit over the chaos 
of the universe. This triumph would be a triumph of faith, 

300 - 



a faith which across spiritual victories and defeats will re- 
main with him while he is alive. One day in a conversation 
Einstein summed it up in a sentence that made a great im- 
pression on his questioners, for it seemed to be a beacon 
capable of guiding searchers through the anguish of their 
exploration of the universe, through their battle for truth. 
This sentence expresses also the meaning of Einstein's strug- 
gle against man's folly and for the survival of humanity. It is 
now engraved over the mantelpiece of a room in Fine Hall 
at Princeton: "God is subtle but he is not malicious.* 3 



Index 



Aarau, 29 

Adler, Friedrich, 50-51 

Adler, Victor, 50 

Alamogordo, N.M., 274-75 

Albert, Xing of the Belgians, 116- 

17, 214, 231, 234 
America. See United States 
Andler, Charles, 225, 227 
"Answer to Critics," 150-52, 156 
Antwerp, 214, 234 
Appeal to Europeans, 61 
Argentina, 286 
Arosa, 72 

Astronomer Royal, 75 
Atomic energy, 47, 263, 268, 270, 

277, 291 

Atomic Energy Commission, 288 
Atomic Energy and the Hydrogen 

Bomb (Wendt),288 
Atomic era, birth of, 269 

Bachelard (quoted) ,47 

Baltic provinces, 124 

Barnett, Lincoln, 257 

Bavaria, 66 

Bavarian Academy of Science, 219 



Beauharnais, Josephine, 27 
Bedier, Joseph, 225, 227 
Belgium, 116-19, 210, 214, 215, 

225, 231, 234, 235 
Bell, George, 200 
Bergson, Henri, 126, 128 
Berlin, 16, 28, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 
64, 65, 66, 74, 84, 93, 111, 
113, 137, 139-40, 145, 149, 
164-67, 175, 193-94, 199, 
213, 216-19, 263-64 
Haberlandstrasse, 139-40, 160, 
194, 196, 212, 213, 220, 221, 
295 
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, 57, 

263-64 

Prussian Academy of Science, 
57, 62, 74, 145, 160, 216-19 
University of, 57, 64, 65, 93 
Berliner Tageblatt, 98 
Bern, 41-51, 262 

Federal Patent Office, 41-51, 

262 

University of, 50 
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 287 
Bohr, Niels, 147, 265-68 



303 



Bom, Max, 49, 56, 254 

Bose, S. N., 145 

Bourgeois, Leon, 124 

Breitscheid, Rudolf, 273 

Briand, Aristide, 175 

Broglie, Louis de, 76, 145-47, 

254, 256, 258 
Brown, Harrison, 289 
Brown, Robert, 46 
Briim'ng, Heinricb, 195, 199, 200-1 
Brussels, 116, 117, 118, 210, 225 
Bund Neues Vaterland, 62, 63 
Buridan's donkey, 30 

Cain, Julien, 175 

California, 192, 195, 199, 211, 
212, 213 

California Institute of Technol- 
ogy, 190 

Caputh, 167-70, 191, 201-2, 209, 

210, 211, 212, 213, 220, 221, 
234 

Landhaus Einstein, 169, 203, 

211, 213, 220, 221, 234 
Carnegie, A., 102 

Central Committee of German 
Jews, 225 

Chicago, University of, 79, 202, 
275, 289 

China, 115 

Clermont-Ferrand, 174 

College de France, 105, 225-27 

Columbia University, N.Y., 261, 
265, 268 

Committee of Aid to German 
Jews, 223 

Committee of Intellectual Co-op- 
eration, 124^33, 172-80 

Copenhagen, University of, 265 

^Cosmological Notes on the The- 
ory of General Relativity," 



Cosmology, modern, birth of, 74- 

75 

Cracow, University of, 48 
Curie, Marie, 62, 109-10, 126, 

130, 132, 134, 173, 176, 252 
Czechoslovakia, 216 

D'Abernon, Edgar Vincent, Lord, 
135 

Danzig, 261 

Davos, 157-58 

Denmark, 265, 266 

Destre'e, Jules, 126 

"Does tie Inertia of a Body De- 
pend on Its Energy Con- 
tent?," 47 

Double stars, 257 

Dukas, Helen, 226, 235, 247, 294 

Eclipse of sun, 75, 77-80 
Eddington, Sir Arthur, 10, 77 
Ehrenfest, Paul, 253 
Einstein, Albert: 

invitation to: Allies, urged to 
force surrender of Germany, 
74 

aloofness, 15, 53, 119-20 

American militarist attitude, 
disappointment at, 287 

anecdotes about, 10, 11, 14, 27, 
28, 53, 82-83, 87, 90, 92, 
118-19, 163-64, 190 

appearance, 11-13, 168, 294- 
95 

astronomers, urged to interest 
themselves in deviation of 
light rays, 55 

atomic bomb, letter to Roose- 
velt concerning, 269, 271, 
278; protests use of, 275; 
views on, 275, 277-78, 279, 
285-86, 290, 291 

attitude toward: authority, 18; 



304 



fame, 9-11, 13-14, 26, 81, 
85, 91, 93; Russia, 283-84 

basic equilibrium, 86-87 

Belgian royal family, friendship 
with, 116-19, 231 

Berlin University, invitation to, 
57 

biographical notes, 19, 25, 33, 
80 

birth, 16 

California Institute of Technol- 
ogy, accepts invitation to, 
190 

capacity for wonder, 45, 55, 
155 

characteristics, 31, 45 

childhood, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 
24, 28, 36; and children, 36- 
37 

College de France, accepts in- 
vitation to, 106 

Committee of Intellectual Co- 
operation, joins, 125; with- 
draws from, 179-80 

Communist, labeled as, 211 

compass, receives, 21 

comprehension of life through 
thought, 19, 21 

conscientious objectors, crusade 
for, 184 

contemporary theoretical phys- 
ics, divorce from, 259 

convention, disregard of, 26, 
27,28 

Copernicus of twentieth cen- 
tury, 48, 56 

correspondence with: Prussian 
Academy of Science, and 
resignation, 216-19; Remain 
Rolland, 61-62, 72-73; Rus- 
sian scientists, 284-85 

criticism of, 53, 147, 254, 281; 
answer to, 150-51 



Curie, Marie, friendship with, 

252; views on, 110 
curiosity as driving force, 103 
decision to teach, 29 
describes processes of scientific 

work, 54-55 
detachment from others, 13, 17 r 

43-44, 47, 53, 92, 119-20, 

127, 197, 204 
differentiation between private 

life and the world of thought 

and science, 42-43 
directed economy, advocate of, 

128 
disarmament, favors universal, 

171 

early interest in science, 21 
economics, interest in, 135, 

136, 187-88 
education, views on, 20, 32-33, 

37, 63, 157-58 
Einstein Fund, inaugurates, 

185 
emphasis on thought, 19, 21, 

42 

English scientists, tribute to, 83 
faith, 259, 301; in harmony of 

universe, 149-50 
family background, 15-16, 19 
father, 16, 21, 23, 28; as father, 

43, 72, 140, 141, 195-97, 

238 

fiftieth birthday, 161-64 
first departure from Europe, 

234 
first encounter with fame, 83- 

84 

German classics, interest in, 22 
German discipline, reaction to, 

18, 19 
German Jews, resented by, 222, 

224 



305 



Einstein, Albert (Confd) 

German national, 99; gives up 
nationality, 24 

Germany, urges Allies to force 
surrender of, 74 

God, definition of, 102 

horror of unnecessary words, 
17; of constraint, 18, 20, 33 

humor, sense of, 9, 15, 36, 61, 
84, 118, 193, 197, 211, 220, 
296 

identification with Jews, 244- 
45 

illness, 34, 46, 73, 158 

independence, need for, 95, 
120, 143-44 

Institute for Advanced Study 
(Princeton), accepts invita- 
tion to, 210 

"Internationale of Science," fa- 
vors, 125 

isolation in personal relation- 
ships, 15, 16, 19, 21, 120 

Israel, refusal to accept presi- 
dency, 96 

Jewish community, leaves, 24, 
93 

Jewish refugees, assistance to, 
246-47, 250-51 

Jews, German, resentment of, 
222, 224 

Jews, spiritual links with, 94- 
95 

jote de vivre, 43, 95, 171 

Judaism, 19, 52, 95, 96 

Langevin, Paul, friendship 
with, 108-9, 212, 292-93 

letters: to Roosevelt, announc- 
ing atomic bomb, 269, 271, 
278; to United Nations, 280 

light rays, urges astronomers* 
interest in deviation of, 55 



manifesto of ninety-three intel- 
lectuals, refusal to sign, 61 

Marie, Mileva, marriage to, 43; 
separation from, 58 

marriage to: cousin Elsa, 67; 
Mileva Marie, 43 

material encumbrances, fights, 
27-28, 91, 114 

mathematics, gives up for phys- 
ics, 30; interest in, 22, 29, 
30, 31, 148 

militarism, change from paci- 
fism to, 246, 248-49 

Munich, leaves, 24, 28 

Nazis search home and confis- 
cate money, 221 

new phase of life, 103 

Nobel, Alfred, views on, 278 

Nobel Prize awarded to, 46, 
115 

opposed by Russian scientists, 
281 

pacifism, 60-61, 126, 183-85, 
210, 248, 249, 269 

parents, 16-17, 19, 21, 26 

Paris, first visit to, 62 

philosophy, interest in, 149-50 

philosophy of life, 93, 137, 143, 
144 

politics, interest in, 135, 136 

Prague university, call to, 52 

precocity, 25 

Prussian Academy of Science, 
invitation to, 57 

publishes: cosmology notes, 74; 
general relativity theory, 71; 
unified field theory, 180 

quantum theory, defense of 

negative view of, 254-56 
realization of being German 

and Jew, 18-19 
recognition by fellow scientists, 
48, 56, 76, 79, 146, 161 



306 



relativity, first paper on un- 
noticed, 48, 49; general the- 
ory, 71 

religious education, 19, 20 

religious views, 102, 154r-S5, 
237, 259, 299-301 

research, explanation of proc- 
ess, 152-53 

Roosevelt, letter to, 269, 271, 
278 

school years, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 
29, 33, 34 

scientist, 42, 45, 54, 70, 92, 
144-45, 151 

scientists, views on, 41, 42, 54, 
61-62, 92, 125, 181 

seventieth birthday, 19, 42, 
150, 156, 283 

social conscience, 86, 119 

sons, 43 

Sorbonne, invitation to, 27 

Stresemann, views on, 172 

struggle for existence, 26-30, 

sublime harmony his goal, 147, 

258 

siims up his life, 42 
Swiss national, 34, 58, 61 
as thinker, and philosophy of 

thought, 19, 21, 42, 43^44, 

147, 149, 152-53 
Third Reich, declaration 

against, 215, 216 
turning point in development, 

21 

understanding, passion for, 30 
unified field theory, 180 
United Nations, letter to, 280- 

proposes reform to, 281-83 
United States, first visit to, 31, 

99-104; woman's club urges 

he be barred from, 211 



voltage measuring device, in- 
vention of, 43 
warmonger, labeled as, 249 
woman's club asks he be barred 

from U. S., 211 
at work, 31-32, 43, 53, 229-30 
world government, interest in, 
280-82; plans foundation of, 
280 
world of thought, 37, 43-44, 

55,71,75 

Yearbook for Physics, contribu- 
tions to, 45-46, 47, 48, 54, 
55, 70-71 
youth, 17-24 

Zionism, conversion to, 97 
Einstein, Albert (son), 195 
Einstein, Eduard (son), 195-97 
Einstein, Elsa (second wife), 26, 
32, 33, 66-69, 72, 82, 85, 
86, 87-89, 90, 91-92, 101, 
105, 107, 113-14, 117, 118, 
141-44, 158, 159, 162-63, 
164-65, 167-68, 170, 191- 
92, 194, 196, 197, 201, 202- 
5, 209, 210, 211-12, 213-15, 
220, 221, 224, 225, 227, 
231-32, 235-37, 238, 239- 
40, 250, 252 
appearance, 66, 141-43 
characteristics, 68-69, 86, 88- 

89,240 

illness and death, 238-41, 252 
as mother, 66, 141, 158, 191, 
234, 235-38; wife, 26, 67, 
85, 86, 88, 89, 113-14, 118, 
143, 158-59, 191, 237, 238, 
239 

place of birth, 15 
Einstein, Usa (stepdaughter), 66, 
140, 191, 220, 221-22, 234, 
235-36 



307 



Einstein, Margot (stepdaughter), 
66, 140, 191, 211-12, 226, 
232, 234, 236-37, 294 

Einstein, Maya (sister), 23, 298 

Einstein, Mileva Marie (first 
wife), 41, 52, 58, 67 

Einstein Fund, 185 

Electrodynamics, 46-47 

"Electrodynamics of Bodies in 
Movement, On the," 46 

Electromagnetism, 160-61, 254 

Elizabeth, Queen of the Belgians, 
116-19, 214, 231 

Emergency Committee of Atomic 
Scientists, 291 

England, 104, 106, 127, 250, 251, 
270, 273 

Ensor, James, 227 

Erzberger, Matthias, 228 

Essay on the Psychology of Inven- 
tion in the Mathematical 
Field (Hadamard), 152 

Euclidean geometry, 22, 54 

Excelsior, 223, 226, 228 

Fallada, Hans, 190 

Faraday, Michael, 47 

Federal Patent Office, 41-51, 262 

Fermi, Enrico, 265-69 

Fischer, Serge, 174, 175 

Flexner, Abraham, 202-3, 205 

Foerster, Friedrich Wilhelm, 61 

Foerster, Wilhelm, 61 

"Foundations of Physics," 258 

"Foundations of the Theory of 
General Relativity, The," 71 

Fiance, 65, 105, 106, 127, 171, 
178, 216, 226, 227, 234, 250, 
251, 270 

Francis Joseph, Emperor of Aus- 
tria, 52 

Frank, Philipp, 50, 53, 81, 161 

Frankfurter Zeitung, 38 



Frisch, Otto, 265-66 
Frumkin, A. N., 281 

Gandhi, Mohandas K., 102 

Geneva, 28, 134 
League of Nations, 124^33, 
172-80 

George, Andre, 258 

Germany, 15, 56, 60, 63-65, 71- 
74, 85, 93, 97, 98, 99, 111- 
13, 121-24, 125, 126-27, 
134, 162, 170, 171, 172, 
18S-87, 189-90, 199, 200-1, 
215, 216, 217, 218, 228, 243, 
246, 282 

Gilbert, Parker, 186 

Goering, Hermann, 223 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 
73, 205, 215 

Gravitation, 30, 54, 55, 70, 79, 
160, 250, 254, 256 

Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 282 

Haberlandstrasse, 139-40, 160, 

194, 212, 213, 22'0, 221, 295 
Hadamard, Jacques, 152 
Haguenin, Professor, 58 
Hahn, Otto, 263-64, 266-67 
Haldane, Richard Burdon, Lord, 

104, 105 

Harnack, Adolf von, 149 
Havana, 191 
Hebrew University, 103 
Hechingen, 15-16, 170 
Hibben, John G., 103 
Hilferding, Rudolf, 273 
Hindenburg, Paul von, 199, 200 
Hinshaw, Virgil, 276, 283, 286- 

87, 291, 300 

Hiroshima, 276-77, 290, 296 
Hitler, Adolf, 135, 199-200, 264, 

265, 266, 267, 268 
Hoesch, Leopold von, 27 



308 



Holland, 114, 210, 225 
Hutchins, Robert M., 275 
Hydrogen bomb, 288-90 

Infeld, Leopold, 41, 45, 48, 49, 
74r-75, 81, 146, 150, 249, 
253^54, 256-58 

Institute for Advanced Study 
(Princeton), 202, 225 

Institute of Intellectual Co-oper- 
ation, 124, 129, 131, 132, 
173, 176 

International Committee of Intel- 
lectual Co-operation. See 
Committee of Intellectual 
Co-operation 

International Labor Organization, 
124, 130 

International League against Anti- 
Semitism, 216 

Israel, 96, 97 

Italy, 23, 24, 28, 131 

Ives, H. E., 257 

Japan, 115, 127, 189, 275-76 

Jewish Consistory, 225 

Jews, 16, 19, 93-94, 95-97, 101- 

2, 221, 222-25, 244-45, 247, 

252 

Joffe, A. K, 281 
Joliot, Fred6ric, 62, 263, 266-67, 

270 

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, 57, 
263-64 

Kant, Lnmanuel, 150, 152, 215 

Kapp Putsch, 98-99, 113 

Kayser, lisa, 234; see also Ein- 
stein, lisa 

Kellennann, Bernhard, 74 

Kessler, Count, 172 

Khartoum, 79 

Knickerbocker, H. R., 135 



Laken, 117, 119 

Langevin, Paul, 71, 106, 108-9, 

145, 212, 27S-74, 292-93 
League of Nations, 124r-33, 172- 

80,189 

Le Coq, 225-34, 235 
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 

70 

Leiden University, 114, 225 
Les Eaux Vives, 132 
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 258 
Lessing, Theodor, 231 
Library of Living Philosophers, 

150 

Liebknecht, Karl, 112 
Life of Emile Zola, The, 14 
Light, 30, 45, 46, 55, 70 
Light quanta, discovery of, 46 
Little Man, What Now? (Fal- 

lada), 190 

London, 28, 79, 82, 118 
London Times, 83, 84 
Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon, 130, 

244 

Loria, Professor, 48 
Louvain, 64 
Luchaire, Julien, 124 
Lusitania, 64, 72 
Luther, Hans, 195 
Luxemburg, Rosa, 112 

McCloy, John, 288 
Mach, Ernst, 282 
Madrid, 225 
Manchukuo, 189 
Manifesto of ninety-three intellec- 
tuals, 61 

Mann, Thomas, 250 
Margenau, Henry, 151, 152 
Marie, Mileva. See Einstein, Mi- 
leva Marie 

Maxwell, James C., 47 
Mayer, Walter, 148, 229, 235 



309 



Mein Kampf, 135 

Meitner, Use, 263-65 

Michelangelo, 13 

Milan, 23, 24 

Monzie, Anatole de, 225, 227 

Moses, 102 

Mount Wilson Observatory, 126, 
190 

Munich, 16-17, 23-24, 28, 134, 
135 

Munzenberg (German Commu- 
nist), 228 

Murray, Gilbert, 175 

"My Portrait," 251 

National Socialism, 127, 190, 195, 
200, 206, 210, 211, 213, 218, 
220, 223, 228, 232-33, 243, 
244, 245, 246, 247, 261 

Nebulae, red shift, 75 

Nernst, Walther Hermann, 57 

"New Definition of Molecular Di- 
mensions, A," 46 

New Times, 281 

Newton, Isaac, 66, 70, 79-80 
Newtonian mechanics, 257 
Newtonian physics, 55 

New York, N.Y., 11, 101, 191, 
192-93, 265, 296 

New York Times, 285 

Nicolai, G., 61 

Nobel Prize, 46, 115 

Nuclear fission, 265-71 

Old Lyme, Conn., 236-37 
One World Award, 296-97 
Ossietzky, Carl von, 250 
Oxford, 201, 225 

Painleve, Paul, 106-7, 173, 174, 

176, 178, 252 
Palestine, 96, 97, 99, 115, 116 



Paris, 11, 27, 62, 72, 105-10, 129, 
173, 174, 223, 225-27 

Pasadena, Calif., 199, 211 

Pauli, Wolfgang, 254 

Pearl Harbor, 189 

Photoelectrical effect, 46 

"Physics and Reality," 39 

Pirandello, Luigi, 238 

Planck, Max, 56, 57, 70, 146, 149, 
161 

Poincare, Henri, 151 

Poland, 261, 270 

Potsdam, 168, 205, 287 

Prague, 52-53, 261 
University of, 52-53 

"Preliminary Notes on Funda- 
mental Concepts," 256 

Princeton, N.J., 14, 33, 103, 105, 
149, 202, 225, 235, 238, 265, 
268, 271, 293-94, 301 
Institute for Advanced Study, 

202, 225 
Mercer Street, 238, 239, 252, 

217, 276, 29^-96 
University, 103 

Principe Island, 77-78, 79 

Prussia, 64, 65, 216 

Prussian Academy of Science, 57, 
62, 74, 145, 160, 216-19 

Quantum theory, 46, 56, 146-47, 
151, 25^56 

Rathenau, Walter, 94, 106, 111- 

12 

Reichenbach, Hans, 149-51 
Relativity theory, 10, 46-51, 53, 
70-71, 74, 83-84, 103, 146, 
148, 149, 150, 253, 254, 256 
Remarque, Erich Maria, 206 
"Reply to American Women," 211 
"Reply to the Anti-Relativist So- 
ciety, My," 98 



310 



Riemann variations, 70 

Roehm, Ernst von, 199 

Holland, Romain, 61-66, 72-74 

Roosevelt, F. D., 247, 268-69, 
270, 278 

Royal Astronomical Society (Lon- 
don), 75, 79 

Royal Society (London), 79 

Rumbold, Sir Horace, 10 

Russell, Bertrand, 287 

Russia, 134, 280, 281, 282, 283, 
284, 286, 287 

Samuel, Sir Herbert, 116 

Schaffhausen, 35 

Schiller, Johann Christoph Frie- 

drich von, 73 
Schlageter, Leo, 127 
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 153 
Seeckt, Hans von, 201, 202 
Semionov, N. N., 281 
Shaw, George Bernard, 13, 104 
Silesia, 124 

Simon, Heinrich, 58-59 
Sobral, 77-78, 79 
Sommerfeld, Arnold, 69-71, 156, 

259 

Sorbonne, 27 
Spain, 115, 225, 286 
Spanish War, 249 
Spiecker, Carl, 200 
Spinoza, Benedict, 102 
Steinach, Eugen, 84 
Stinnes, Hugo, 122 
Strasbourg, University of, 174 
Strassman, F., 263, 266 
Stresemann, Gustav, 134, 135, 

172, 174 
StiSrgkh, Karl, 51 
Swabia, 15, 16, 64, 170 
Sweden, 115 
Swing, Raymond, 270, 277, 283, 

286, 299 



Switzerland, 29, 35, 41-51, 72- 
74, 124-34, 157-58, 175-81, 
196 

Szilard, Leo, 261, 268-69, 289 

Television, birth of, 46 
Thaelmann, Ernst, 228 
Thomas, Albert, 130 
Treaty of Locarno, 172, 173 
Truman, Harry S., 288 
Tucholski, Kurt, 85 

Ulm, 16 

UNESCO, 124 

Unified field theory, 160-61, 257, 

300 
Union of the New Fatherland, 

62-63 
United Nations, 280, 281, 282, 

291 

United States, 31, 97, 98, 99, 100- 
4, 189, 190, 191-92, 199, 
210, 211, 216, 227, 234, 235, 
246-47, 282, 287, 290 
Universities: American, English, 
and German (Flexner), 202 
University of 

Berlin, 57, 64, 65, 93 
Bern, 50 

Chicago, 79, 202, 275, 289 
Copenhagen, 265 
Cracow, 48 
Leiden, 114, 125 
Prague, 52-53 
Princeton, 103 
Strasbourg, 174 
Zurich, 35, 50, 51, 52 
Urey, Harold C., 283 

Val<ry, Paul, 144-45 
Vavilov, Sergei, 281 
Vevey, 65 
Vienna, 51 



311 



Villeneuve, 73 
Volkischer Beobachter, 206 
Voltage measuring device, inven- 
tion of, 43 

Washington, D.C., 266, 28T 
Wave mechanics, 145, 254 
Weizmann, Chaim, 96, 97, 102 
Wells, H. G., 263 
Wendt, Gerald, 277, 288-89 
Wesleyan University, 160 
Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, 

57, 60, 288 
Winterthur, 35 
Witkowski, Professor, 48 
Woman Patriot Corporation, 211 



World government, 280, 281 
World As I See It 9 The, 120, 143, 

183 
World War I, 51, 59, 60, 62, 63, 

66, 71, 72, 74, 77, 244, 263 
World War H, 270, 27S-80 

Yearbook for Physics, 45, 47, 49, 
54, 55, 70, 262 

Zionism, 93, 95-98, 99 

Zurich, 23, 29-30, 32-34, 35, 50, 

56-58, 65, 197 
Polytechnic, 29-30, 32-34, 50, 

56-58 
University of, 35, 50, 51, 5$ 



312