Michèle Audin - One Hundred Twenty-One Days

We will now address these figures with established formulas.

[…]

From these calculations, we can conclude that there is a probability of about 85 % that, among the individuals of race A , the probability of there being an eminent talent in physics or chemistry is at least 20 times and at most 42 times greater than in race B.

EXERCISES IN MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION

(Matematisches Arbeits- und Lehrbuch, Neuenheim-Verlag, 1937)

- The construction of an insane asylum costs 6 million Reichsmarks. How many detached houses at 15,000 Reichsmarks each could have been built for that sum?

- The care of a mentally ill patient costs 8 Reichsmarks a day. How many Reichsmarks will this mentally ill patient cost after 40 years?

PIERRE MEYER (interview, December 18, 2006, cont.). I’m the one who saved these two articles. But like me, Mortaufs was interested in what was happening in Germany. Bernadette told me about the little German girls with blond braids whom the family hosted during the International Exposition in 1937. There were also grand receptions in Chatou, with members of the French Academy, friends from the France-Germany Committee, sometimes foreign guests as well. Marguerite had a notebook in which she wrote down the menus for the dinners she gave. As for Mortaufs, he had been going to Germany since the early ’30s — he had some scientific contacts and many friends there. He traveled a lot, I think. Marguerite didn’t go with him, but with that whole household, what would you expect?

CARMO’S CONJECTURE IN THE FINITE CASE

NOTE BY A. SILBERBERG, PRESENTED BY C. MORTAUFS

(Reports from the Academy of Sciences, Meeting of March 27, 1939)

We prove, for Galois fields, a conjecture similar to the one proposed by Carmo in the complex field. From this we deduce a few corollaries and a few questions to which we hope to return in a future paper.

PIERRE MEYER (interview, December 18, 2006, cont.). This is André Silberberg’s very first article. It may well also be the very first note Mortaufs presented at the Academy of Sciences. He was elected at the beginning of 1939. This article was found among Mireille Duvivier’s papers. The ones on Gorenstein, too. She must have gotten them from her mother.

ASSESSMENT OF THE G. CASE

BY J. MEYERBEER, PSYCHIATRIC DOCTOR, SAINT-MAURICE HOSPITAL

(Gazette of the Association of Psychiatric Doctors of France, Vol. 47, 1939)

In our previous articles ( Gaz. Assoc. Psy. Doc. Fr. 28, 1920, Fr. Rev. Psy. Med. 11, 1930), we mentioned G.’s interest in current events. Here we will be content to make a list of the subjects on which he has commented for us over the years.

TOPICS FROM CURRENT EVENTS ADDRESSED BY THE PATIENT

Among these, the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931, the choice of Hitler as German chancellor, the death of Paul Painlevé (a mathematician who didn’t retreat from our times, he commented), the riots of February 1934, the victory of the Popular Front, the start of the war in Spain, and the Olympic Games in Berlin.

He was particularly taken aback by the interviews with Hitler published by certain newspapers. “Look, Doctor Meyerbeer, the journalist even had that fraud autograph a photo for him,” he showed us one day.

In mathematics, the important step taken by a Russian mathematician towards demonstrating Goldbach’s conjecture was worth several explanations. “Doctor Meyerbeer, you know what a prime number is, right?” he asked us. Of course, and the patient knows that his therapist knows what a prime number is.

MANICO-MELANCHOLICUS

The patient shifts easily, unexpectedly, and rapidly from a dejected mood to one of happy restlessness, often while speaking on the same topic. This disorder, which is rather mild, seems to particularly manifest during our conversations. The racist politics of the ruling Nazi Party in Germany seem to depress him profoundly.

“They’re going to exterminate us, Doctor Meyerbeer, you and me both. You won’t be able to escape,” he tells us regularly in a bleak voice. And sometimes, almost without taking another breath, he bursts into laughter while showing us a mathematics article in which a Jewish German scholar calculates the probability (which is very high) of a Jewish German being better in physics than an “Aryan” German.

“But can’t you see it’s a joke, Doctor Meyerbeer? Don’t you know I can prove the same thing about psychiatrists for you?”

We must admit that we do not always understand what makes him laugh (especially in mathematics). We considered giving him a lithium treatment, but the mildness of his disorder does not seem to hinder him, especially as we are certain that mathematics, and the fact that he can either find the subject funny or work on it seriously, is enough to bring him back to the side of euphoria.

SAID AND UNSAID

As the list above shows, for twenty years already, the patient has addressed a wide variety of subjects with us. However, it must be noted that G. has never spoken about the triple murder or his time in the war, either spontaneously or at our request. Every question concerning one of these subjects causes a brilliant and slightly exalted discourse to emerge on quite unrelated subjects.

Apart from prime numbers, sardine fishing, the scientific dispositions of Jewish Germans, current politics, and, as always, succubi and other demons with blue eyes, here are a few examples of his assertions collected over the course of the years:

“Doctor Meyerbeer, I am your Robert le Diable. Did you know that the real Robert the Devil passed himself off as a madman?”

“My mother slept with the devil.”

“There is a butterfly with my name — no, not G., Robert-le-Diable.”

“My sister was the one born from my mother’s hideous adultery.”

“I hate dogs. Because I loved a woman who preferred cats.”

“I should write about you, Doctor. I would study the way you say ‘perfect’ every time I say something absurd.”

In a feature article, currently in progress, we reveal in this case specifically (but also in several others) the connection between the murder of one’s father and the phobia of dogs.

We will add that, since G. is an educated patient, he politely and carefully read our previous articles dedicated to his case. Although we thought we saw him hold back a smile, he did not make the slightest comment. Concerning an earlier version of the present article, which we had hoped would draw him out of his shell, he corrected a past participle and made this single comment: “Excuse me, but I have things to do. I have to try to answer an arithmetic problem that a mathematics student asked me about. A brilliant boy, that Silberberg! You’ll hear more from him!”

Thus ends the last of the articles saved by Pierre Meyer in the large manila envelope.

In the large manila envelope, I had arranged — well, you may not find it very well arranged… I had saved articles from before the war that one person or another had given to me. You’re handling the chronology, right? One day, if you’d like, I could relate some of the things my wife told me about that period.