einstein

CHAPTER TEN
DIVORCE
1916–1919
With Elsa, June 1922
“The Narrow Whirlpool of Personal Experience”
As a young man, Einstein had predicted, in a letter to the mother of his first girlfriend, that the joys of science would be a refuge from painful
personal emotions. And thus it was. His conquest of general relativity proved easier than finding the formulas for the forces swirling within his family.
Those forces were complex. At the very moment he was finalizing his field equations—the last week of November 1915—his son Hans Albert
was telling Michele Besso that he wanted to spend time alone with his father over Christmas, preferably on Zugerberg mountain or someplace
similarly isolated. But simultaneously, the boy was writing his father a nasty letter saying he did not want him to come to Switzerland at all. 1
How to explain the contradiction? Hans Albert’s mind seemed at times to display a duality—he was, after all, only 11—and he had powerfully
conflicted attitudes toward his father. That was no surprise. Einstein was intense and compelling and at times charismatic. He was also aloof and
distracted and had distanced himself, physically and emotionally, from the boy, who was guarded by a doting mother who felt humiliated.
The stubborn patience that Einstein displayed when dealing with scientific problems was equaled by his impatience when dealing with personal
entanglements. So he informed the boy he was canceling the trip. “The unkind tone of your letter dismays me very much,” Einstein wrote just days
after finishing his last lecture on general relativity. “I see that my visit would bring you little joy, therefore I think it’s wrong to sit in a train for two hours
and 20 minutes.”
There was also the question of a Christmas present. Hans Albert had become an avid little skier, and Mari gave him a set of equipment that
cost 70 francs. “Mama bought them for me on condition that you also contribute,” he wrote. “I consider them a Christmas present.” This did not
please Einstein. He replied that he would send him a gift in cash, “but I do think that a luxury gift costing 70 francs does not match our modest
circumstances,” Einstein wrote, underlining the phrase. 2
Besso put on what he called his “pastoral manner” to mediate. “You should not take serious offense at the boy,” he said. The source of the friction
was Mari , Besso believed, but he asked Einstein to remember that she was composed “not only of meanness but of goodness.” He should try to
understand, Besso urged, how difficult it was for Mari to deal with him. “The role as the wife of a genius is never easy.” 3 In the case of Einstein, that
was certainly true.
The anxiety surrounding Einstein’s proposed visit was partly due to a misunderstanding. Einstein had assumed that the plan to have him and his
son meet at the Bessos’ had been arranged because Mari and Hans Albert wanted it that way. Instead, the boy had no desire to be a bystander
while his father and Besso discussed physics. Just the opposite: he wanted his father to himself.
Mari ended up writing to clear up the matter, which Einstein appreciated. “I was likewise a bit disappointed that I would not get Albert to myself
but only under Besso’s protection,” he said.
So Einstein reinstated his plan to visit Zurich, and he promised it would be one of many such trips to see his son. “[Hans] Albert* is now entering
the age at which I can mean very much to him,” he said. “I want mainly to teach him to think, judge and appreciate things objectively.” A week later,
in another letter to Mari , he reaffirmed that he was happy to make the trip, “for there is a faint chance that I’ll please Albert by coming.” He did,
however, add rather pointedly, “See to it that he receives me fairly cheerfully. I am quite tired and overworked, and not capable of enduring new
agitations and disappointments.” 4
It was not to be. Einstein’s exhaustion lingered, and the war made the border crossing from Germany difficult. Two days before Christmas of
1915, when he was supposed to be departing for Switzerland, Einstein instead wrote his son a letter. “I have been working so hard in the last few
months that I urgently need a rest during the Christmas holidays,” he said. “Aside from this, coming across the border is very uncertain at present,
since it has been almost constantly closed recently. That is why I must unfortunately deprive myself of visiting you now.”
Einstein spent Christmas at home. That day, he took out of his satchel some of the drawings that Hans Albert had sent him and wrote the boy a
postcard saying how much they pleased him. He would come for Easter, he promised, and he expressed delight that his son enjoyed playing piano.
“Maybe you can practice something to accompany a violin, and then we can play at Easter when we are together.” 5
After he and Mari separated, Einstein had initially decided not to seek a divorce. One reason was that he had no desire to marry Elsa.
Companionship without commitment suited him just fine. “The attempts to force me into marriage come from my cousin’s parents and is mainly
attributable to vanity, though moral prejudice, which is still very much alive in the old generation, plays a part,” Einstein wrote Zangger the day after
presenting his climactic November 1915 lecture. “If I let myself become trapped, my life would become complicated, and above all it would probably