summary of the night i met einstein
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When I was a very young man, just beginning to make my way, I was invited to dine at the home of a distinguished New York philanthropist. After dinner, our hostess led us to an enormous drawing room. Other guests were pouring in, and my eyes beheld two unnerving sights: Servants were arranging small gilt chairs in long, neat rows; and up front, leaning against the wall, were musical instruments.
Apparently I was in for an evening of chamber music.
I use the phrase “in for” because music meant nothing to me. I am almost tone deaf—only with great effort can I carry the simplest tune, and serious music was to me no more than an arrangement of noises. So I did what I always did when trapped: I sat down, and when the music started, I fixed my face in what I hoped was an expression of intelligent appreciation, closed my ears from the inside, and submerged myself in my own completely irrelevant thoughts.
After a while, becoming aware that the people around me were applauding, I concluded it was safe to unplug my ears. At once I heard a gentle but surprisingly penetrating voice on my right: “You are fond of Bach?”
I knew as much about Bach as I know about nuclear fission. But I did know one of the most famous faces in the world, with the renowned shock of untidy white hair and the ever-present pipe between the teeth. I was sitting next to Albert Einstein.
“Well,” I said uncomfortably and hesitated. I had been asked a casual question. All I had to do was be equally casual in my reply. But I could see from the look in my neighbor’s extraordinary eyes that their owner was not merely going through the perfunctory duties of elementary politeness. Regardless of what value I placed on my part in the verbal exchange, to this man his part in it mattered very much. Above all, I could feel that this was a man to whom you did not tell a lie, however small.
“I don’t know anything about Bach,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve never heard any of his music.”
A look of perplexed astonishment washed across Einstein’s mobile face
Summary Of "The Night I Met Einstein" written by Jerome Weidman:-
- The Night I met Einstein” written by Jerome Weidman, swirls around the encounter of the narrator with Albert Einstein at an event in New York. Later the dinner, the visitors feasted on some classical music, especially Bach. The narrator was not pleased with all about the concert because he could not relish and comprehend the music which was being played.
- The narrator was convinced and did not know his ability of understanding and enjoy classical music. He was tone-deaf and did not have any affection for classical music. Einstein, who loved classical music and Bach, somewhere was proficient to realize that the narrator was not relishing the concert. So, he implored the narrator whether he liked Bach because he could see that the narrator did not admire the piano concert and Bach was following in the lineup.
- Einstein immersed the narrator in the conversation and carried him out of that room to an upper-floor study where Einstein gave the narrator an all-new understanding of music. He made the narrator realise that narrator was not tone-deaf. Einstein made him understand that to learn a higher level of music is like to learn mathematics. One expects to understand addition and subtraction to perform multiplication and division.
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