Nov 01, 2016 - Sale 2428

Sale 2428 - Lot 73

Price Realized: $ 2,470
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
THE EINSTEINS MAKE A HOME IN PRINCETON, NJ EINSTEIN, ELSA. Archive of 9 letters, each Signed, "Elsa" or "Ihre Elsa" or "Elsa Einstein," to the wife of Berlin physician Gustav P. Bucky, in German, on Albert Einstein and other mostly personal topics, including 6 Typed Letters, 2 Autograph Letters, and an Autograph Note. Together 16 pages, 8vo or 4to; scattered short closed separations at folds, one with green ink underlines in an unknown hand. Vp, 1933-34

Additional Details

19 November 1933: ". . . My husband [Albert] got almost all the Maultäschle [Swabian-style ravioli]. He has a special weakness for these. If they weren't so much work, I would have made them occasionally too. . . ."
5 March 1934: ". . . I am corresponding with the Paris ministry in the hope that they will not allow my husband to come. What would await him in Paris, I see as very grim. . . .
"From Paris came a telegram that 2000 refugees face poverty and about 300, starvation. We should send help as soon as possible. So we'll have to relinquish the money my husband gained that evening. God willing, this will be spent carefully. The need there exceeds all conceivable bounds. . . ."
13 March 1934, concerning a visit to New York City: ". . . After that we will probably go to the theater . . . . My husband wants to see a typically American play. . . .
". . . Heaven knows what will become of us in the near future. . . . Should we go to Paris? Should we go to Europe at all? I feel drawn there and can hardly stand it if I can't check on the children soon. But he [Albert] says he won't go to Europe at all, unless he has to go to Paris. How does one get out of this Dilemma?"
16 May 1934: ". . . I like cleanliness and maintenance in a house, and in this respect I am utterly different from my husband, who can go into any dingy corner and feel at home there. . . .
". . . All my life I have known nothing but that one must fight . . . with people, because they demand too much of you and flay you alive. That one should be put in a position where people mean so well for one that one must pester to be allowed to do one's part--this has never happened to me before. It is nice to have such an experience. But now you must also be so kind and obedient as to stop making it so hard for us. . . . Let us put this trifle to rest, not speak of it again, and do what my husband's sense of fairness dictates. . . ."
11 March 1935: ". . . In the afternoon we will pay a visit to Dr. Rubin. They are seriously miffed at us because we turned down their invitation . . . . My husband didn't want to travel to New York . . . . So now we would like to make peace with them . . . . In the evening we'll be at the German-Jewish Club . . . ."
20 March no year: ". . . Albert is going to visit Waters [Leon R. Watters?] for a few days. . . . because he avoided him with the Florida trip. And because Waters is so alone and Albert wants to give him some pleasure. Waters can't abide me, which is why I never go to see him. . . . But he worships Albert. . . ."
Gustav P. Bucky (1899-1963), born in Leipzig, Germany, practiced medicine in the U.S. in 1924 until 1929, when he became head of the X-Ray Department at the Rudolph Virchow Hospital in Berlin. In 1933, Bucky left Germany and resumed his practice in the U.S.