Aubrey loved telling stories, and knowing of my interest in the physical sciences, he told me several stories of his contacts with Albert Einstein. Following Chaim Weizmann’s death in 1952, Aubrey had been delegated to invite Einstein to become the next president of Israel (Einstein, of course, declined). On another occasion, Aubrey recounted with a smile, he and a colleague from the Israeli consulate visited Einstein in his house in Princeton. Einstein invited them in and courteously asked if they would like coffee, and (thinking that an assistant or housekeeper would make it), Aubrey said yes. But he was “horrified,” as he put it, when Einstein trotted into the kitchen himself. They soon heard the clatter of cups and pots and an occasional piece of crockery falling, as the great man, in his friendly but slightly clumsy way, made the coffee for them. This, more than anything, Aubrey said, showed him the human and endearing side of the world’s greatest genius.
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