PARTLY because of a history-making series of scientific meetings in Brussels, partly because of a shared love of music, and above all because of mutual regard, a remarkable friendship sprang up between Einstein and King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium. The nature of the friendship is shown vividly in the following excerpts from a letter written by Einstein in Brussels in 1931 to his wife Elsa. In the letter Einstein tells of a visit to the palace.
I was received with touching warmth. These two people are of a purity and kindness seldom found. First we talked for about an hour. Then [the Queen and I] played quartets and trios [with an English lady musician and a musical lady-in-waiting]. This went on merrily for several hours. Then they all went away and I stayed behind alone for dinner at the King’s—vegetarian style, no servants. Spinach and fried eggs and potatoes, period. (It had not been anticipated that I would stay.) I liked it very much there, and I am certain the feeling is mutual.
The friendship with the royal family of Belgium endured and deepened. In a letter to Einstein in Germany dated 30 July 1932, Queen Elizabeth enclosed copies of photographs that she had taken of him, told him how much she had enjoyed talking with him and wandering in the park, and said she had not forgotten his lucid explanation of the causal and probabilistic theories in physics. On 19 September 1932 Einstein replied in part as follows:
It gave me great pleasure to tell you about the mysteries with which physics confronts us. As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists. If such humility could be conveyed to everybody, the world of human activities would be more appealing.
On 9 February 1931 Einstein wrote to the Queen from Santa Barbara, California, as follows:
Two days I have been staying in this carefree corner where wind and heat and cold are all unknown. And yesterday I was shown a dreamy villa (Bliss) in which you are said to have spent a few happy, quiet days some years ago.
It is now two months that I have been in this country of contradictions and surprises, where one alternates between admiration and headshaking. One realizes that one is attached to the old Europe with its problems and its pains, and returns gladly.
Two years later, on 19 February 1933, Einstein, again in Santa Barbara, sent the Queen a small twig together with a quatrain of which the following is a translation:
In cloister garden a small tree stands.
Planted by your very hands.
It sends—its greetings to convey—
A twig, for it itself must stay.
The Queen replied in kind from the Palace in Laeken on 15 March 1933. By that time the Nazis had come to power and had confiscated Einstein’s money and reviled him widely. Near the end of her rhyme the Queen obliquely refers to this and also plays on the name Einstein, which, when written as two words “Ein Stein,” means “one stone.” Here is a translation of what she wrote:
“The twig the greeting did convey
From the tree that had to stay,
And from the friend, whose heart so big
Could send great joy by tiny twig.
A thousand thanks aloud I cry
Unto mountain, sea, and sky.
Now, when stones begin to shake,
I pray ONE STONE no harm will take.”
__________
In January 1934 the Einsteins, now safely settled in Princeton, were the guests of President and Mrs. Roosevelt in the White House. In the course of the conversation there were cordial remembrances of the Queen. Einstein wanted her to know of this, so he wrote the following verse hailing the President. It was dated 25 January 1934, and was sent to the Queen on White House stationery. Below, with minor change, is the official translation of the rhyme:
In the Capital’s proud glory
Where Destiny unfolds her story,
Who solutions can provide.
In our talk of yester night
Memories of you were bright;
In remembrance of our meeting
Let me send you this rhymed greeting.
__________
When the Einsteins returned to Europe from Pasadena in 1933, shortly after the Nazis seized power in Germany, it was not wholly by chance that they took refuge in the tiny Atlantic resort of Le Coq-sur-mer. For Le Coq was in Belgium. King Albert and Queen Elizabeth were deeply concerned about Einstein’s safety. With rumors flying that the Nazis had placed a price on Einstein’s head, King Albert ordered that there be two bodyguards to protect him day and night.
The following letter from Einstein in Princeton to Elizabeth comes a little later and offers a glimpse of yet another facet of the friendship. The letter makes brief mention of “the Barjanskys.” Mr. and Mrs. Barjansky, friends of the Einsteins, were also friends of the Belgian royal couple. Indeed, Mr. Barjansky played cello in the Queen’s quartet, and his wife, a sculptor, gave lessons to the Queen. It was through their intervention that the letter came to be written. These are the circumstances: In the spring of 1934 King Albert fell to his death while mountain climbing, and in late summer the following year the new Queen, Astrid—Elizabeth’s daughter-in-law—died in an automobile accident at the age of thirty. The double blow devastated Elizabeth. She fell into a state of profound emotional numbness, unable even to bring herself to make music with the quartet or to work on her sculpture, to the alarm of those around her.
Mrs. Barjansky wrote to Einstein telling him of the situation and suggesting that a letter from him to Elizabeth might do some good. Here is Einstein’s letter. It is dated 20 March, and although the year is not given it was almost certainly 1936:
Dear Queen,
Today, for the first time this year, the spring sunshine has made its appearance, and it aroused me from the dreamlike trance into which people like myself fall when immersed in scientific work. Thoughts rise up from an earlier and more colorful life, and with them comes remembrance of beautiful hours in Brussels.
Mrs. Barjansky wrote to me how gravely living in itself causes you suffering and how numbed you are by the indescribably painful blows that have befallen you.
And yet we should not grieve for those who have gone from us in the primes of their lives after happy and fruitful years of activity, and who have been privileged to accomplish in full measure their task in life.
Something there is that can refresh and revivify older people: joy in the activities of the younger generation—a joy, to be sure, that is clouded by dark forebodings in these unsettled times. And yet, as always, the springtime sun brings forth new life, and we may rejoice because of this new life and contribute to its unfolding; and Mozart remains as beautiful and tender as he always was and always will be. There is, after all, something eternal that lies beyond reach of the hand of fate and of all human delusions. And such eternals lie closer to an older person than to a younger one oscillating between fear and hope. For us, there remains the privilege of experiencing beauty and truth in their purest forms.
Have you ever read the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld? They seem quite acerb and gloomy, but by their objectivization of human and all-too-human nature they bring a strange feeling of liberation. In La Rochefoucauld we see a man who succeeded in liberating himself even though it had not been easy for him to be rid of the heavy burden of the passions that Nature had dealt him for his passage through life. It would be nicest to read him with people whose little boat has gone through many storms: for example, the good Barjanskys. I would gladly join in were it not forbidden by “the big water.”
I am privileged by fate to live here in Princeton as if on an island that in many respects resembles the charming palace garden in Laeken. Into this small university town, too, the chaotic voices of human strife barely penetrate. I am almost ashamed to be living in such peace while all the rest struggle and suffer. But after all, it is still the best to concern oneself with eternals, for from them alone flows that spirit that can restore peace and serenity to the world of humans.
With my heartfelt hope that the spring will bring quiet joy to you also, and will stimulate you to activity, I send you my best wishes.
