Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman [8]
“I may be mistaken, but it seems the rooms are a bit draftier this year,” says the admiral’s wife. The others nod, continue eating the lobster and the steak. “I always sleep best in cool rooms, but if it’s drafty I wake up with a cough.”
“Put the sheet over your head,” says the other woman.
The admiral’s wife says yes but looks puzzled.
“Tuck your head under the sheet and the draft won’t bother you,” repeats the other woman. “It happens to me all the time in Grindelwald. I have a window by my bed. I can leave it open if I put the sheet over my nose. Keeps the cold air out.”
The woman with the brocade shifts in her chair, uncrosses her legs beneath the table.
Coffee comes. The men retire to the smoking room, the women to the wicker swing on the great deck outside.
“And how’s the business since last year?” asks the admiral.
“Can’t complain,” says the other man, sipping his brandy.
“The children?”
“Grown a year.”
On the porch, the women swing and look into the night.
And it is just the same in every hotel, in every house, in every town. For in this world, time does pass, but little happens. Just as little happens from year to year, little happens from month to month, day to day. If time and the passage of events are the same, then time moves barely at all. If time and events are not the same, then it is only people who barely move. If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly.
• INTERLUDE
Einstein and Besso walk slowly down Speichergasse in the late afternoon. It is a quiet time of day. Shopkeepers are dropping their awnings and getting out their bicycles. From a second-floor window, a mother calls to her daughter to come home and prepare dinner.
Einstein has been explaining to his friend Besso why he wants to know time. But he says nothing of his dreams. Soon they will be at Besso’s house. Sometimes Einstein stays there through dinner, and Mileva has to come get him, toting their infant. That usually happens when Einstein is possessed with a new project, as he is now, and all through dinner he twitches his leg under the table. Einstein isn’t good dinner company.
Einstein leans over to Besso, who is also short, and says, “I want to understand time because I want to get close to The Old One.”
Besso nods in accord. But there are problems, which Besso points out. For one, perhaps The Old One is not interested in getting close to his creations, intelligent or not. For another, it is not obvious that knowledge is closeness. For yet another, this time project could be too big for a twenty-six-year-old.
On the other hand, Besso thinks that his friend might be capable of anything. Already this year, Einstein has completed his Ph.D. thesis, finished one paper on photons and another on Brownian motion. The current project actually began as an investigation of electricity and magnetism, which, Einstein suddenly announced one day, would require a reconception of time. Besso is dazzled by Einstein’s ambition.
For a while, Besso leaves Einstein alone with his thoughts. He wonders what Anna has cooked for dinner and looks down a side street where a silver boat on the Aare glints in the low sun. As the two men walk, their footsteps softly click on the cobblestones. They have known each other since their student days in Zürich.
“Got a letter from my brother in Rome,” says Besso. “He’s coming to visit for a month. Anna likes him because he always compliments her figure.” Einstein smiles absently. “I won’t be able to see you after work while my brother is here. Will you be all right?”
“What?” asks Einstein.
“I won’t be able to see you much while my brother is here,” repeats Besso. “Will you be all right by yourself?”
“Sure,” says Einstein. “Don’t worry about me.”
Ever since Besso has known him, Einstein has been self-sufficient. His family moved around when he was growing up. Like Besso, he is married, but he hardly goes anywhere with his wife. Even at home, he sneaks away from Mileva in the