A furious letter about the well-meaning interference of his friends in his attempts to make financial provision for his family.

Anna Besso has written Einstein two ‘forceful’ letters on his financial provisions for his estranged family in Zurich, no doubt with the ‘enviable feeling of being the noble woman whose words will be approved by both contemporaries and posterity (der Mit- und Nachwelt). But my problem is different and my role less rewarding, and less sympathetic and interesting to the Mit- und Nachwelt’. He goes on to explain: if he dies within two years without making savings, he will leave his wife and children with a wholly inadequate financial support, no doubt to the horror of contemporaries and posterity. Instead of giving in to pressure from his friends (the Bessos and Heinrich Zangger), Einstein will instead follow his own path, and he sets out the precise provisions he can make for the present, and his objective in the future. He also discusses the medical expenses incurred by the recent illnesses suffered by Mileva and his younger son Eduard, noting that it cannot be a permanent solution to keep the latter in a mountain sanatorium – the expenses involved would lead to ‘certain ruin’. Einstein expresses resentment at the ‘grotesque way’ in which his friends have ‘preached morality’ to him on this subject, and even attempted to force him into expenditure by advancing the money on their own account. He will not be budged: ‘If I am once decided on something, I too can be firm, and even ungrateful’. He ends on a compromising note: ‘I will remain in all friendship towards you, Michele and Zangger, even if my boys become completely estranged from me and you are disappointed by me’. A postscript addressed to the Bessos' son, Vero, asks about whether some offprints have arrived.