My Father André Weil

Almost twenty years have passed since my father’s death on August 6th, 1998, yet he still sometimes calls me: “Sylvie, get me out of here, I’m bored.” (The French word he uses is not so polite.)

I am sure that, following Jewish tradition, André was assigned a study companion for all eternity. I had once asked him who this companion would be. “Euler,” he answered, and smiled. So when he calls me to tell me he is bored, I ask: “What about Euler? Is he bored, too?”

Nothing horrified my father more than being bored or wasting time. Every moment needed to be usefully or pleasantly employed. I still have my father’s letters to me when I was a teenager. He recommended extraordinary programs: evenings were given to reading Euripides and Sophocles, Thursdays at the Louvre or the Comédie Française, Sunday afternoons at the Salle Pleyel to hear Beethoven…. The idealism of these letters makes me smile, but reactivates the terrible guilt I felt because, at fifteen, I just wanted to have a good time.