Einstein's Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page A

stone slabs of the roofs. Another section of the village is a picture of the eighteenth century. Burnt red tiles lie angled on the straight-lined roofs. A church has oval windows, corbeled loggias, granite parapets. Another section holds the present, with arcades lining every avenue, metal railings on the balconies, façades made of smooth sandstone. Each section of the village is fastened to a different time.
    On this late afternoon, in these few moments while the sun is nestled in a snowy hollow of the Alps, a person could sit beside the lake and contemplate the texture of time. Hypothetically, time might be smooth or rough, prickly or silky, hard or soft. But in this world, the texture of time happens to be sticky. Portions of towns become stuck in some moment in history and do not get out. So, too, individual people become stuck in some point of their lives and do not get free.
    Just now, a man in one of the houses below the mountains istalking to a friend. He is talking of his school days at the gymnasium. His certificates of excellence in mathematics and history hang on the walls, his sporting medals and trophies occupy the bookshelves. Here, on a table, is a photograph of him as captain of the fencing team, embraced by other young men who have since gone to university, become engineers and bankers, gotten married. There, in the dresser, his clothes from twenty years, the fencing blouse, the tweed pants now too close around the waist. The friend, who has been trying for years to introduce the man to other friends, nods courteously, struggles silently to breathe in the tiny room.
    In another house, a man sits alone at his table, laid out for two. Ten years ago, he sat here across from his father, was unable to say that he loved him, searched through the years of his childhood for some moment of closeness, remembered the evenings that silent man sat alone with his book, was unable to say that he loved him, was unable to say that he loved him. The table is set with two plates, two glasses, two forks, as on that last night. The man begins to eat, cannot eat, weeps uncontrollably. He never said that he loved him.
    In another house, a woman looks fondly at a photograph of her son, young and smiling and bright. She writes to him at along-defunct address, imagines the happy letters back. When her son knocks at the door, she does not answer. When her son, with his puffy face and glassy eyes, calls up to her window for money, she does not hear him. When her son, with his stumbling walk, leaves notes for her, begging to see her, she throws out the notes unopened. When her son stands in the night outside her house, she goes to bed early. In the morning, she looks at his photograph, writes adoring letters to a long-defunct address.
    A spinster sees the face of the young man who loved her in the mirror of her bedroom, on the ceiling of the bakery, on the surface of the lake, in the sky.
    The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.

• 11 May 1905
    Walking on the Marktgasse, one sees a wondrous sight. The cherries in the fruit stalls sit aligned in rows, the hats in the millinery shop are neatly stacked, the flowers on the balconies are arranged in perfect symmetries, no crumbs lie on the bakery floor, no milk is spilled on the cobblestones of the buttery. No thing is out of place.
    When a gay party leaves a restaurant, the tables are more tidy than before. When a wind blows gently through the street, the street is swept clean, the dirt and dust transported to theedge of town. When waves of water splash against the shore, the shore rebuilds itself. When leaves fall from the trees, the leaves line up like birds in V-formation. When clouds form faces, the faces stay. When a pipe lets smoke into a room, the soot drifts toward a