einstein

Princeton
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AMERICA
1933–1939
112 Mercer Street
The ocean liner Westmoreland, which carried Einstein, at age 54, to what would become his new home country, arrived in New York Harbor on
October 17, 1933. Waiting to meet him in the rain at the Twenty-third Street pier was an official committee led by his friend Samuel Untermyer, a
prominent attorney, who carried some orchids he had grown, plus a group of cheerleaders that was scheduled to parade with him to a welcoming
pageant.
Einstein and his entourage, however, were nowhere to be found. Abraham Flexner, the director of the Institute for Advanced Study, was
obsessed with shielding him from publicity, whatever Einstein’s quirky preferences might be. So he had sent a tugboat, with two Institute trustees, to
spirit Einstein away from the Westmoreland as soon as it cleared quarantine. “Make no statement and give no interviews on any subject,” he had
cabled. To reiterate the message, he sent a letter with one of the trustees who greeted Einstein’s ship. “Your safety in America depends upon
silence and refraining from attendance at public functions,” it said. 1
Carrying his violin case, with a profusion of hair poking out from a wide-brimmed black hat, Einstein surreptitiously disembarked onto the tug,
which then ferried him and his party to the Battery, where a car was waiting to whisk them to Princeton. “All Dr. Einstein wants is to be left in peace
and quiet,” Flexner told reporters. 2
Actually, he also wanted a newspaper and an ice cream cone. So as soon as he had checked into Princeton’s Peacock Inn, he changed into
casual clothes and, smoking his pipe, went walking to a newsstand, where he bought an afternoon paper and chuckled over the headlines about the
mystery of his whereabouts. Then he walked into an ice cream parlor, the Baltimore, pointed his thumb at the cone a young divinity student had just
bought, and then pointed at himself. As the waitress made change for him, she announced, “This one goes in my memory book.” 3
Einstein was given a corner office in a university hall that served as the temporary headquarters of the Institute. There were eighteen scholars in
residence then, including the mathematicians Oswald Veblen (nephew of the social theorist Thorstein Veblen) and John von Neumann, a pioneer of
computer theory. When shown his office, he was asked what equipment he might need. “A desk or table, a chair, paper and pencils,” he replied.
“Oh yes, and a large wastebasket, so I can throw away all my mistakes.” 4
He and Elsa soon found a house to rent, which they celebrated by hosting a small musical recital featuring the works of Haydn and Mozart. The
noted Russian violinist Toscha Seidel played lead, with Einstein as second fiddle. In return for some violin tips, Einstein tried to explain relativity
theory to Seidel and made him some drawings of moving rods contracting in length. 5
Thus began a proliferation of popular tales in town about Einstein’s love for music. One involved Einstein playing in a quartet with violin virtuoso
Fritz Kreisler. At a certain point they got out of sync. Kreisler stopped playing and turned to Einstein in mock exasperation. “What’s the matter,
professor, can’t you count?” 6 More poignantly, there was an evening where a Christian prayer group gathered to make intercessions for persecuted
Jews. Einstein surprised them by asking if he could come. He brought his violin and, as if offering a prayer, played a solo. 7
Many of his performances were purely impromptu. That first Halloween, he disarmed some astonished trick-or-treaters, a group of 12-year-old
girls who had come with the intent of playing a prank, by appearing at the door and serenading them with his violin. And at Christmastime, when
members of the First Presbyterian Church came by to sing carols, he stepped out into the snow, borrowed a violin from one of the women, and
accompanied them. “He was just a lovely person,” one of them recalled. 8
Einstein soon acquired an image, which grew into a near legend but was nevertheless based on reality, of being a kindly and gentle professor,
distracted at times but unfailingly sweet, who wandered about lost in thought, helped children with their homework, and rarely combed his hair or
wore socks. With his amused sense of self-awareness, he catered to such perceptions. “I’m a kind of ancient figure known primarily for his non-use
of socks and wheeled out on special occasions as a curiosity,” he joked. His slightly disheveled appearance was partly an assertion of his
simplicity and partly a mild act of rebellion. “I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to,” he told a neighbor. 9
His baggy, comfortable clothes became a symbol of his lack of pretense. He had a leather jacket that he tended to wear to events both formal
and informal. When a friend found out that he had a mild allergy to wool sweaters, she went to a surplus store and bought him some cotton
sweatshirts, which he wore all the time. And his dismissive attitude toward haircuts and grooming was so infectious that Elsa, Margot, and his
sister, Maja, all sported the same disheveled gray profusion.