by Isaac Asimov
The young woman was a sweet and kind girl who went out of her way to make sure that she never hurt my feelings even though she was not in the least interested in me romantically. We went out together a few times (my first dates) and she bore up under my incredible gau
cheries. For instance, she taught me that self-service cafeterias were not the only places where one could eat, and led me to a small restaurant after warning me, very gently, that I would have to leave a tip.
In fact, the happiest day of my life, up to that point, came on May 26, 1940, when I took her to the World’s Fair, spent the whole day with her, and even managed to give her a few small pecks I thought of as “kisses.”
That was the end, though. She had obtained her master’s degree by then and that was enough for her. She got a job in industry in Wilmington, Delaware, and on May 30 she said goodbye and left me behind feeling quite woebegone.
I saw her twice after that. Once I actually went down to Wilmington to visit her and we went to the movies together. And a quarter century later, I was giving a talk in Atlantic City to the American Chemical Society and a woman who was quietly waiting to speak to me after the lecture was over said, “Do you remember me, Isaac?”
It was she and I did recognize her, but there was no emotion in volved. I had dinner on the boardwalk with her and her husband. By that time, she had had five children.
What followed after our parting seems to me now (now, after half a century) to be the most interesting part of the whole event. I suffered heartbreak, for the first and only time of my life. Heartbreak, as I judge from my limited experience, is the pain one feels at the loss of a love object, in the case where the love object, not returning the love, breaks off (whether kindly or cruelly) and disap pears. The person you love is gone, but still exists, and is simply not available. This is a rather benign situation as compared with the irrev ocable loss through death of someone you love, but it is, nevertheless, painful.
For a long time, I wandered about unsmiling and unhappy. For me, the clouds hovered close and sunshine was meaningless. I somehow couldn’t think of anything but the young woman, and when I did think of her there was a constriction of the chest and I found it diffi cult to breathe. I decided there was no meaning to life and I was quite, quite, quite certain that I would never get over it. In fact, I wasn’t sure it might not be a good thing simply to lie down and die of heartbreak.
The odd thing is that I did get over it and I don’t remember exactly how. Was it in stages? Did the load lighten slowly day by day? Or did I just wake up one morning whistling? I’m not even sure how long it took to recover.
And when it was over, it left not a scar behind. That’s why I say it’s benign. I presume that the younger you are when you experience heartbreak, the milder the attack and the cleaner the recovery. (I wonder if anyone has ever investigated such matters?) Assuming that this speculation of mine is true, I’m glad I experienced it no later than twenty.
I would like to make the further guess that heartbreak confers a certain amount of immunity, if a person is not incredibly emotional. At least, after my experience with heartbreak, I was very careful not to allow my emotions to run away with me. I held my feelings for young women in check, and let them grow only if justified by the response I seemed to sense. The result was that I never suffered heartbreak again.
I did marry twice, eventually, each time for love, but I did so, I like to think, sensibly; and more sensibly the second time than the first.
"Nightfall”
By the spring of 1941, I had published fifteen stories, four of them in ASF. I had also written ten stories or so that had not been sold. Most of my published stories had been poor indeed. By then, though, I had begun to write a series of stories about “positronic robots” that were to achieve a certain renown. I had published three of them. They were “Strange Playfellow,” for which I later used the title “Robbie” (September 1940 Super Science), “Reason” (April 1941 ASF), and “Liar!” (May 1941 ASF). They were fairly good.
However, I had as yet, in almost three years of selling, failed to do anything outstanding.
On March 17, 1941, however, when I visited Campbell’s office, he read me the following quotation from an early essay entitled “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God.” Campbell said, “I think Emerson is wrong. I think that if the stars would appear one night in a thousand years, people would go crazy. I want you to write a story about that and call it ‘Nightfall.’ “ Alexei Panshin, an important historian of science fiction, is convinced that Campbell had decided that I, specifically, was the one he wanted to write the story. I don’t believe that. I think that Campbell was just waiting for any one of his reliables to walk in, and I happened to be the one. If so, how fortunate for me. It might have been Lester del Rey or Ted Sturgeon and I would have lost the opportunity of a lifetime. I worked away at “Nightfall” just as I would any other story and sold it to Campbell in April. It appeared in the September 1941 issue of ASF.
To me, it was just another story, but Campbell, a much better judge of such things, treated it as something unusual. He paid me a bonus for the first time, sending me a check for one and a quarter cents a word rather than the usual penny. (Nor did he tell me he was doing this, so that I had to brood a bit and then, in accordance with the strict code of ethics inculcated in me by my father, I phoned to tell him he had paid me too much. Campbell was very amused. He was used to complaints that he paid too little; this was the first time he received a complaint that he had paid too much. He explained, of course.) He also gave me the cover—the first time I ever had an ASF cover— and it was the lead story in the magazine.
The story, “Nightfall,” has since come to be considered a classic. A great many people think it was the best story I ever wrote, and some even think it was the best magazine science fiction story anyone ever wrote. Frankly, I think this is ridiculous and have always thought so.
First, the story still shows ample signs of pulpishness in the writing. By my reckoning, I didn’t get rid of my pulp magazine heritage till 1946.
While I grant the story has an interesting and mind-expanding plot (about a world in perpetual light that experienced darkness only once in a long, long time), I have since written stories—quite a number of them—that I like much better than “Nightfall.”
In later years, Campbell established something he called an “Analytical Laboratory,” which reported on readers’ votes as to the relative popularity of the stories in a particular issue. If this had existed in 1941, I am quite convinced that the story “Adam and No Eve” by Alfred Bester, which appeared in the same issue with “Nightfall,” would have been voted the top story. It should have, for Bester was a better writer than I was (then and afterward) and his story was extremely good.
In later years, increasingly prestigious awards were given out by science fiction organizations for the best stories of the year in different length categories. The two most important of these are the Hugo, given out at the World Science Fiction Convention, and the Nebula, given out by the Science Fiction Writers of America. If these had existed in 1941, I am convinced that “Nightfall” would not have received an award in the novelette category. In that year, Robert A. Heinlein and A. E. van Vogt were far and away the most popular writers in science fiction and the absolute mainstay of ASF. They would surely have swept all the awards.
And yet “Nightfall” retains its retrospective position. In a number of readers’ polls since as to all-time favorite stories, it has regularly finished in first place. Even nowadays, I get word with fair regularity that when “Nightfall” is included among the stories studied in science fiction classes, it is invariably the top favorite.
I’ll never understand it.
Still, it was a turning point, even if I can’t figure out the reason. After “Nightfall” was published, the rej
ections stopped. I simply wrote and sold, and within a year or two, I had reached the Heinlein/ van Vogt level, or almost.
When, forty years after the story was published, I got around to establishing a corporation, I had no choice. I called that corporation Nightfall, Inc.
and leave her with a permanent limp, my only escape was to sit down and write three long essays one after the other.
But even writing in that wretched time was scarcely enough. Only a few months after I sold “Nightfall,” German forces invaded the Soviet
As World War II Begins
At almost precisely the time I began my graduate studies, World War II broke out in Europe. I hesitate to look for external reasons for my decline in academic scholarship, but the war took my attention away from my studies. It had to. No bright Jewish youngster who had been following the situation in Europe with painful attention for years could possibly dismiss the war as something that didn’t concern him just because his own nation was not part of it and maintained its neutrality. Every Jew in the world was at risk if Hitier’s Germany won the war. I desperately wanted Hitler defeated. Desperately! The school year during which I had my feckless litde love affair began with the destruction of Poland and ended with the destruction of France. I spent hours (hours) each day listening to the radio and reading the newspapers in a vain search for good news, for anything to lift my spirits. During the summer of 1940, the time of my heartbreak was made heavier by something very akin to it over the plight of Europe.
I’m sure my schoolwork had to suffer. It was hard to concentrate on it, or to think of it as important. It is amazing to me that I continued writing. I can only explain it by my experience in later life. When I have felt depressed and unhappy, the only anodyne I had (since I have never smoked, drunk, or drugged) was to write. It was only writing that dulled my anxiety. Once, when Robyn had broken her ankle and I was in despair, thinking it might interfere with the growth of that leg
Union on an enormous scale and with enormous strength. By the time “Nightfall” appeared in print, the Soviet Union seemed on the point of destruction.
Still the United States maintained its neutrality. To be sure, every victory by Hitler weakened the isolationist forces within the United States. Every victory frightened more and more people into wanting the United States to do something actively to aid those who were fighting Hitler. In particular, Great Britain’s remarkable stand against Hitler in the fall of 1940, its victory in the Battle of Britain, galvanized American sympathies to the point where we were at everything but a shooting war with Germany. Even those (quite many) who feared the Soviet Union more than Germany were shouted down by the great many who shared the increasingly universal execration of Hitler.
Master of Arts
Eventually, one had to take tests in order to see (a) if one deserved to be granted a Master of Arts degree (MA.) and (b) if one deserved, further, to be allowed to move on beyond that for a degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).
The young woman with whom I had been in love had had no trouble at the end of one year of studies in passing her tests and getting her MA. and could have gone on for her Ph.D. if she had wanted to. It is a sign of the degree to which my academic quality had fallen that when I took the tests, I got my MA. but it was strictly a consolation prize in my own eyes, for my test grades were not sufficient to allow me to go on for a Ph.D.
That put me in a quandary—the same quandary I had been in for some years. If I accepted my M.A. and left it at that, I would have to leave school and find a job. On the other hand, I might continue to take courses, for I would be allowed to take the tests a second time.
Of course, the job situation had changed considerably. The United States was now gearing up for war if that should be necessary or, failing that, at least for serving as what Franklin Roosevelt called the “arsenal of democracy.”
Feelers were therefore out for bright students in the sciences who could take on war work. I would have been glad to take such a job and feel that I was contributing to the fight against Hitler.
Unfortunately, I had two things going against me. I was no longer a bright student, at least not in chemistry. Second, there was the old, old trouble—the professors thought little of me, and it was they who had to be relied on to recommend this student or that.
I had encountered another professor who enjoyed hectoring his students. I refused to submit to that and I assume he felt I was disrespectful to him, so he was therefore not likely to recommend me for anything, and he had a powerful voice. So there I was, in graduate school and still unable to establish a decent working relationship with my teacher.
Then I got into trouble with Professor Arthur W. Thomas, a curmudgeon of the worst kind, and in sheer desperation I asked for an interview, at which I could try to present my version of the problem. (He was receiving complaints that I was singing in the chem lab and distracting the other students—very like my early problems about whispering in class.) I labored hard to make myself look good and to win him over and, for a wonder, I succeeded.
To my astonishment, he became pro-Asimov, and shortly after that became acting head of the chemistry department. I suspect that one reason for his switch in attitude was that he had given instructions to the lab assistants (they told me a year later) to give me difficult analyti cal problems and get rid of me through failure. I stubbornly worked my way through them, however, and did so without complaint be cause I was too stupid to suspect conspiracy.
I have often thought of my talk with Thomas and wondered what course my life would have taken if I had consistently turned on the charm when I thought that would be useful instead of taking the attitude that “I’m right—you’re wrong—and I don’t intend to com promise.” But I never did. Until the time came when I was fully self-employed, I continued to be in serious trouble with anyone who could be considered my hierarchical superior. When I took my tests a second time, I finally received permission on February 13, 1942, to go on for my Ph.D., perhaps through the intercession of the now kindly Professor Thomas. But that did not end my troubles either. I had to find a professor who was willing to take me on and give me a problem to work on and supervise that work in a competent and friendly manner. Unfortunately, the professors I knew in the department would not have me under any circumstances, and Thomas himself was immersed in administrative work and was not doing research.
A fellow student, however, told me that his own professor, Charles Reginald Dawson, was a kindhearted fellow who took on all the “lame dogs” others didn’t want. I was not offended by the appellation, for I recognized aptness.
I rushed to Dawson and he took me on. He was a man of medium height, soft-spoken, and of a quiet temperament. He never lost his temper, he was never angry. (This may have been at a price, for he suffered badly from duodenal ulcers.) He was endlessly patient and he was amused by me. I was pleased by that. I don’t mind being considered a queer duck, if the alternative is to consider me a problem student.
Dawson was an inspiration to me and a gentleman of impeccable kindness. Despite my hopeless lack of ability in laboratory work, Dawson supervised me carefully and tirelessly, and saw to it that I managed. I believe that he somehow had the notion that I was an enthusiastic inventor of ideas and that I was a remarkable person. (At least, on one or two occasions when I overheard him talking about me to another professor, I had difficulty in recognizing myself from his description.)
The result? Well, he lived to see me become what I am, has had books of mine dedicated to him, and I have praised him in print on a number of occasions. (I may have many sins, but I have never practiced the sin of ingratitude.)
In fact, he told me—with what I am sure was affectionate exaggeration—that his greatest claim to fame, it eventually turned out, was
that I had been a student of his. I cannot believe that, but how I wish it were true, because I can’t think of any better return I could make for all he did for me.
Pearl Harbor
Two mon
ths before I qualified to go on for my Ph.D., the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so that on December 7, 1941, we were in the war.
I suppose it would be wonderful if I could say that I instantly dropped everything and volunteered to join the armed forces, and then fought through the war, winning medals and wounds.
If the world were ideal and I were perfect, I would have, but it isn’t and I’m not, and I didn’t. I’ve always admitted that there is nothing physically heroic about me.
If I had been drafted, I would have gone, of course, even though I would have been frightened to death every step of the way. I can’t imagine what land of soldier I would have made, and it paralyzes me to think that under enemy fire I might have turned coward and fled screaming, or done something else equally terrible. I console myself with the thought that human beings rise to the occasion, that even cowards will find some reservoir of strength when it is demanded.
Well, perhaps—but I thought I could surely use my brains in my country’s service to better effect than I could use my shrinking body. Yes, of course, I’m ashamed that I didn’t rush to volunteer, but I’d be a lot more ashamed if I tried to pretend to a bravery I do not possess. In any case, I wasn’t drafted, at least not for quite a while, and I just kept on writing, and began work toward my Ph.D.
Marriage and Problems
I had joined the Brooklyn Authors Club in 1941. We would get together, read manuscripts and criticize them. It was rather a fun thing to do. Another young man at the club, Joseph Goldberger, liked one of my stories and suggested that he and I go out on a double date. I explained that I had no girlfriend, and he said he would supply one. Very nervously, I agreed.