einstein

e a heavy blow for my boys. Therefore, I must allow myself not to be moved either by my inclination or by tears, but must remain as I am.” It was a
resolution he repeated to Besso as well. 6
Besso and Zangger agreed that he should not seek a divorce. “It is important that Einstein knows that his truest friends,” Besso wrote Zangger,
“would regard a divorce and subsequent remarriage as a great evil.” 7
But Elsa and her family kept pushing. So in February 1916, Einstein wrote Mari to propose—indeed, beg—that she agree to a divorce, “so that
we can arrange the rest of our lives independently.” The separation agreement they had worked out with the help of Fritz Haber, he suggested,
could serve as the basis for a divorce. “It will surely be possible to have the details settled to your satisfaction,” he promised. His letter also included
instructions on how to keep their boys from suffering from calcium deficiency. 8
When Mari resisted, Einstein became more insistent. “For you it involves a mere formality,” he said. “For me, however, it is an imperative duty.”
He informed Mari that Elsa had two daughters whose reputations and chances of marriage were being compromised by “the rumors” that were
circulating about the illicit relationship their mother was having with Einstein. “This weighs on me and ought to be redressed by a formal marriage,”
he told Mari . “Try to imagine yourself in my position for once.”
As an enticement, he offered more money. “You would gain from this change,” he told Mari . “I wish to do more than I had obligated myself to
before.” He would transfer 6,000 marks into a fund for the children and increase her payments to 5,600 marks annually. “By making myself such a
frugal bed of straw, I am proving to you that my boys’ well-being is closest to my heart, above all else in the world.”
In return, he wanted the right to have his sons visit him in Berlin. They would not come into contact with Elsa, he pledged. He even added a
somewhat surprising promise: he would not be living with Elsa even if they got married. Instead, he would keep his own apartment. “For I shall never
give up the state of living alone, which has manifested itself as an indescribable blessing.”
Mari did not consent to give him the right to have the boys visit him in Berlin. But she did tentatively agree—or at least so Einstein thought—to
allow the start of divorce discussions. 9
As he had promised Hans Albert, Einstein arrived in Switzerland in early April 1916 for a three-week Easter vacation, moving into a hotel near
the Zurich train station. Initially, things went very well. The boys came to see him and greeted him joyously. From his hotel, he sent Mari a note of
thanks:
My compliments on the good condition of our boys. They are in such excellent physical and mental shape that I could not have wished for more.
And I know that this is for the most part due to the proper up-bringing you provide them. I am likewise thankful that you have not alienated me
from the children. They came to meet me spontaneously and sweetly.
Mari sent word that she wanted to see Einstein herself. Her goal was to be assured that he truly wanted a divorce and was not merely being
pressured by Elsa. Both Besso and Zangger tried to arrange such a meeting, but Einstein declined. “There would be no point in a conversation
between us and it could serve only to reopen old wounds,”s he wrote in a note to Mari . 10
Einstein took Hans Albert off alone, as the boy wished, for what was planned as a ten-day hiking excursion in a mountain resort overlooking Lake
Lucerne. There they were caught in a late-season snowstorm that kept them confined to the inn, which initially pleased them both. “We are snowed
in at Seelisberg but are enjoying ourselves immensely,” Einstein wrote Elsa. “The boy delights me, especially with his clever questions and his
undemanding way. No discord exists between us.” Unfortunately, soon the weather, and perhaps also their enforced togetherness, became
oppressive, and they returned to Zurich a few days early. 11
Back in Zurich, the tensions revived. One morning, Hans Albert came to visit his father at the physics institute to watch an experiment. It was a
pleasant enough activity, but as the boy was leaving for lunch, he urged his father to come by the house and at least pay a courtesy call on Mari .
Einstein refused. Hans Albert, who was just about to turn 12, became angry and said he would not come back for the completion of the
experiment that afternoon unless his father relented. Einstein would not. “That’s how it remained,” he reported to Elsa a week later, on the day he
left Zurich. “And I have seen neither of the children since.” 12
Mari subsequently went into an emotional and physical melt-down. She had a series of minor heart incidents in July 1916, accompanied by
extreme anxiety, and her doctors told her to remain in bed. The children moved in with the Bessos, and then to Lausanne, where they stayed with
Mari ’s friend Helene Savi , who was riding out the war there.
Besso and Zangger tried to get Einstein to come down from Berlin to be with his sons. But Einstein demurred. “If I go to Zurich, my wife will
demand to see me,” he wrote Besso. “This I would have to refuse, partly on an inalterable resolve partly also to spare her the agitation. Besides,
you know that the personal relations between the children and me deteriorated so much during my stay at Easter (after a very promising start) that I
doubt very much whether my presence would be reassuring for them.”
Einstein assumed that his wife’s illness was largely psychological and even, perhaps, partly faked. “Isn’t it possible that nerves are behind it all?”
he asked Zangger. To Besso, he was more blunt: “I have the suspicion that the woman is leading both of you kind-hearted men down the garden
path. She is not afraid to use all means when she wants to achieve something. You have no idea of the natural craftiness of such a woman.” 13
Einstein’s mother agreed. “Mileva was never as sick as you seem to think,” she told Elsa. 14
Einstein asked Besso to keep him informed of the situation and made a stab at scientific humor by saying that his reports did not need to have
logical “continuity” because “this is permissible in the age of quantum theory.” Besso was not sympathetic; he wrote Einstein a sharp letter saying
Mari ’s condition was not “a deception” but was instead caused by emotional stress. Besso’s wife, Anna, was even harsher, adding a postscript to
the letter that addressed Einstein with the formal Sie. 15
Einstein backed down from his charge that Mari was faking illness, but railed that her emotional distress was unwarranted. “She leads a worryfree
life, has her two precious boys with her, lives in a fabulous neighborhood, does what she likes with her time, and innocently stands by as the
guiltless party,” he wrote Besso.
Einstein was especially stung by the cold postscript, which he mistakenly thought came from Michele rather than Anna Besso. So he added his
own postscript: “We have understood each other well for 20 years,” he said. “And now I see you developing a bitterness toward me for the sake of a
woman who has nothing to do with you. Resist it!” Later that day he realized he had mistaken Anna’s harsh postscript for something her husband
had written, and he quickly sent along another note apologizing to him. 16
On Zangger’s advice, Mari checked into a sanatorium. Einstein still resisted going to Zurich, even though his boys were at home alone with a
maid, but he told Zangger he would change his mind “if you think it’s appropriate.” Zangger didn’t. “The tension on both sides is too great,” Zangger
explained to Besso, who agreed. 17
Despite his detached attitude, Einstein loved his sons and would always take care of them. Please let them know, he instructed Zangger, that he
would take them under his wing if their mother died. “I would raise the two boys myself,” he said. “They would be taught at home, as far as possible