The last illness of Elsa Einstein – and pride in his son's doctoral thesis.

'We are going through a difficult time with Elsa. Not only is her illness very serious. But she has received much too large a dose of X-ray irradiation. This has a terrible effect on her heart which was in any case very much damaged by her illness'. They are still hoping that she will survive this: 'But she is suffering unspeakably...'.

His son Hans Albert has finished his doctoral thesis (on the subject of sediment transport, in which it is still considered the definitive work), and Einstein is impressed: 'If he had turned himself to actual science, he might well have been able to achieve something there, for he has imagination and stamina. That in spite of this he wants to work on the technical side comes from a form of contrariness which he had against me in the years of his development (especially as a consequence of my divorce from Mileva)'.

He asks how much the repairs to Maja's house have cost, and to whom he should send the funds to pay for them, and sends her birthday greetings. A postscript notes that his stepdaughter Margot is getting divorced: her husband had become involved in fraudulent activities.

Elsa Einstein was to die just over a month later, on 20 December 1936.

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