Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
232
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
am away. I have never felt so much how I love you and your
brother. Every time I am pleased I unconsciously think of you.
I enjoy myself very much in Paris. Mathematicians and others
make much of me [font grand cas de moi], but I long intensely to
see a truant brother and sister who are quite indispensable to
my life. I cannot leave this before July 5th, and cannot get to
Christiania in time for the National Science Congress.1 Can you
meet me [in Copenhagen] so that we may go home together?
Please reply at once. I have taken your book2 to Jonas Lie.
He speaks of you very kindly. He has returned my call, but
had not yet read your book. He also thinks you have more
talent for novel-writing than for the drama. I hope to see Jonas
Lie once more before I leave. I send you my love and long to
see you again, my dear Anna Carlotta. Tout à toi.
sönya.
As usual, Sönya could not tear herself away from
Paris till the last minute. She arrived at Copenhagen
on the last day of the Congress. I was accustomed to
her sudden changes of mood, but this time the contrast
was amazing between the mood she was now in and that
which had ruled her during the whole of the spring,
when she was in Stockholm.
She had been in Paris together with Poincaré and
other mathematicians. While in conversation with
them she had felt a desire awaken within her to
occupy herself with problems the solution of which was
to bring her the highest fame, and to gain for her the
highest prize of the French Academy of Science.
It now seemed to her that nothing was worth living
for but science. Everything else—personal happiness,
love, and love of nature, day-dreaming—all was vain.
The search after scientific truth was now to her the
highest and most desirable of things. Interchange of
1 We had intended to meet in Norway and spend the rest of
the summer together.
2 "A Summer Saga."
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
