'What Do You Care What Other People Think?'

by Richard P Feynman

  “No, no!” I reply. “We’ve already discussed the possibility of Hodgkin’s disease. I know she can adjust to it.”

  “Her parents don’t want her to know. You had better talk to them first.”

  At home, everybody worked on me: my parents, my two aunts, our family doctor; they were all on me, saying I’m a very foolish young man who doesn’t realize what pain he’s going to bring to this wonderful girl by telling her she has a fatal disease. “How can you do such a terrible thing?” they asked, in horror.

  “Because we have made a pact that we must speak honestly with each other and look at everything directly. There’s no use fooling around. She’s gonna ask me what she’s got, and I cannot lie to her!”

  “Oh, that’s childish!” they said—blah, blah, blah. Everybody kept working on me, and said I was wrong. I thought I was definitely right, because I had already talked to Arlene about the disease and knew she could face it— that telling her the truth was the right way to handle it.

  But finally, my little sister comes up to me—she was eleven or twelve then—with tears running down her face. She beats me on the chest, telling me that Arlene is such a wonderful girl, and that I’m such a foolish, stubborn brother. I couldn’t take it any more. That broke me down.

  So I wrote Arlene a goodbye love letter, figuring that if she ever found out the truth after I had told her it was glandular fever, we would be through. I carried the letter with me all the time.

  The gods never make it easy; they always make it harder. I go to the hospital to see Arlene—having made this decision—and there she is, sitting up in bed, surrounded by her parents, somewhat distraught. When she sees me, her face lights up and she says, “Now I know how valuable it is that we tell each other the truth!” Nodding at her parents, she continues, “They’re telling me I have glandular fever, and I’m not sure whether I believe them or not. Tell me, Richard, do I have Hodgkin’s disease or glandular fever?”

  “You have glandular fever,” I said, and I died inside. It was terrible—just terrible!

  Her reaction was completely simple: “Oh! Fine! Then I believe them.” Because we had built up so much trust in each other, she was completely relieved. Everything was solved, and all was very nice.

  She got a little bit better, and went home for a while. About a week later, I get a telephone call. “Richard,” she says, “I want to talk to you. Come on over.”

  “Okay.” I made sure I still had the letter with me. I could tell something was the matter.

  I go upstairs to her room, and she says, “Sit down.” I sit down on the end of her bed. “All right, now tell me,” she says, “do I have glandular fever or Hodgkin’s disease?”

  “You have Hodgkin’s disease.” And I reached for the letter.

  “God!” she says. “They must have put you through hell!”

  I had just told her she has a fatal disease, and was admitting that I had lied to her as well, and what does she think of? She’s worried about me! I was terribly ashamed of myself. I gave Arlene the letter.

  “You should have stuck by it. We know what we’re doing; we are right!”

  “I’m sorry. I feel awful.”

  “I understand, Richard. Just don’t do it again.”

  You see, she was in bed upstairs, and did something she used to do when she was little: she tiptoed out of bed and crawled down the stairs a little bit to listen to what people were doing downstairs. She heard her mother crying a lot, and went back to bed thinking, “If I have glandular fever, why is Mother crying so much? But Richard said I had glandular fever, so it must be right!”

  Later she thought, “Could Richard have lied to me?” and began to wonder how that might be possible. She concluded that, incredible as it sounded, somebody might have put me through a wringer of some sort.

  She was so good at facing difficult situations that she went on to the next problem. “Okay,” she says, “I have Hodgkin’s disease. What are we going to do now?”

  I had a scholarship at Princeton, and they wouldn’t let me keep it if I got married. We knew what the disease was like: sometimes it would get better for some months, and Arlene could be at home, and then she would have to be in the hospital for some months—back and forth for two years, perhaps.

  So I figure, although I’m in the middle of trying to get my Ph.D., I could get a job at the Bell Telephone Laboratories doing research—it was a very good place to work—and we could get a little apartment in Queens that wasn’t too far from the hospital or Bell Labs. We could get married in a few months, in New York. We worked everything out that afternoon.

  For some months now Arlene’s doctors had wanted to take a biopsy of the swelling on her neck, but her parents didn’t want it done—they didn’t want to “bother the poor sick girl.” But with new resolve, I kept working on them, explaining that it’s important to get as much information as possible. With Arlene’s help, I finally convinced her parents.

  A few days later, Arlene telephones me and says, “They got a report from the biopsy.”

  “Yeah? Is it good or bad?”

  “I don’t know. Come over and let’s talk about it,”

  When I got to her house, she showed me the report. It said, “Biopsy shows tuberculosis of the lymphatic gland.”

  That really got me. I mean, that was the first goddamn thing on the list! I passed it by, because the book said it was easy to diagnose, and because the doctors were having so much trouble trying to figure out what it was. I assumed they had checked the obvious case. And it was the obvious case: the man who had come running out of the meeting room asking “Do you spit up blood?” had the right idea. He knew what it probably was!

  I felt like a jerk, because I had passed over the obvious possibility by using circumstantial evidence—which isn’t any good—and by assuming the doctors were more intelligent than they were. Otherwise, I would have suggested it right off, and perhaps the doctor would have diagnosed Arlene’s disease way back then as “tuberculosis of the lymphatic gland—?” I was a dope. I’ve learned, since then.

  Anyway, Arlene says, “So I might live as long as seven years. I may even get better.”

  “So what do you mean, you don’t know if it’s good or bad?”

  “Well, now we won’t be able to get married until later.”

  Knowing that she only had two more years to live, we had solved things so perfectly, from her point of view, that she was disturbed to discover she’d live longer! But it didn’t take me long to convince her it was a better circumstance.

  So we knew we could face things together, from then on. After going through that, we had no difficulty facing any other problem.

  When the war came, I was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project at Princeton, where I was finishing up my degree. A few months later, as soon as I got my degree, I announced to my family that I wanted to get married.

  My father was horrified, because from the earliest times, as he saw me develop, he thought I would be happy as a scientist. He thought it was still too early to marry—it would interfere with my career. He also had this crazy idea: if a guy was in some difficulty, he used to always say, “Cherchez la femme”—look for the woman behind it. He felt that women were the great danger to a man, that a man always has to watch out and be tough about women. And when he sees me marrying a girl with tuberculosis, he thinks of the possibility that I’m going to get sick, too.

  My whole family was worried about that—aunts, uncles, everyone. They brought the family doctor over to our house. He tried to explain to me that tuberculosis is a dangerous disease, and that I’m bound to get it.

  I said, “Just tell me how it’s transmitted, and we’ll figure it out.” We were already very, very careful: we knew we must not kiss, because there’s a lot of bacteria in the mouth.

  Then they very carefully explained to me that when I had promised to marry Arlene, I didn’t know the situation. Everybody would understand that I didn’t know the situation then, and that i
t didn’t represent a real promise.

  I never had that feeling, that crazy idea that they had, that I was getting married because I had promised it. I hadn’t even thought of that. It wasn’t a question of having promised anything; we had stalled around, not getting a piece of paper and not being formally married, but we were in love, and were already married, emotionally.

  I said, “Would it be sensible for a husband who learns that his wife has tuberculosis to leave her?”

  Only my aunt who ran the hotel thought maybe it would be all right for us to get married. Everybody else was still against it. But this time, since my family had given me this kind of advice before and it had been so wrong, I was in a much stronger position. It was very easy to resist and to just proceed. So there was no problem, really. Although it was a similar circumstance, they weren’t going to convince me of anything any more. Arlene and I knew we were right in what we were doing.

  Arlene and I worked everything out. There was a hospital in New Jersey just south of Fort Dix where she could stay while I was at Princeton. It was a charity hospital—Deborah was the name of it—supported by the Women’s Garment Workers Union of New York. Arlene wasn’t a garment worker, but it didn’t make any difference. And I was just a young fella working on this project for the government, and the pay was very low. But this way I could take care of her, at last.

  We decided to get married on the way to Deborah Hospital. I went to Princeton to pick up a car—Bill Woodward, one of the graduate students there, lent me his station wagon. I fixed it up like a little ambulance, with a mattress and sheets in the back, so Arlene could lie down in case she got tired. Although this was one of the periods when the disease was apparently not so bad and she was at home, Arlene had been in the county hospital a lot, and she was a little weak.

  I drove up to Cedarhurst and picked up my bride. Arlene’s family waved goodbye, and off we went. We crossed Queens and Brooklyn, then went to Staten Island on the ferry—that was our romantic boat ride—and drove to the city hall for the borough of Richmond to get married.

  We went up the stairs, slowly, into the office. The guy there was very nice. He did everything right away. He said, “You don’t have any witnesses,” so he called the bookkeeper and an accountant from another room, and we were married according to the laws of the state of New York. Then we were very happy, and we smiled at each other, holding hands.

  The bookkeeper says to me, “You’re married now. You should kiss the bride!”

  So the bashful character kissed his bride lightly on the cheek.

  I gave everyone a tip and we thanked them very much. We got back in the car, and drove to Deborah Hospital.

  Every weekend I’d go down from Princeton to visit Arlene. One time the bus was late, and I couldn’t get into the hospital. There weren’t any hotels nearby, but I had my old sheepskin coat on (so I was warm enough), and I looked for an empty lot to sleep in. I was a little worried what it might look like in the morning when people looked out of their windows, so I found a place that was far enough away from houses.

  The next morning I woke up and discovered I’d been sleeping in a garbage dump—a landfill! I felt foolish, and laughed.

  Arlene’s doctor was very nice, but he would get upset when I brought in a war bond for $18 every month. He could see we didn’t have much money, and kept insisting we shouldn’t contribute to the hospital, but I did it anyway.

  One time, at Princeton, I received a box of pencils in the mail. They were dark green, and in gold letters were the words “RICHARD DARLING, I LOVE YOU! PUTSY.” It was Arlene (I called her Putsy).

  Well, that was nice, and I love her, too, but—you know how you absentmindedly drop pencils around: you’re showing Professor Wigner a formula, or something, and leave the pencil on his desk.

  In those days we didn’t have extra stuff, so I didn’t want to waste the pencils. I got a razor blade from the bathroom and cut off the writing on one of them to see if I could use them.

  The next morning, I get a letter in the mail. It starts out, “WHAT’S THE IDEA OF TRYING TO CUT THE NAME OFF THE PENCILS?”

  It continues: “Aren’t you proud of the fact that I love you?” Then: “WHAT DO YOU CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK?”

  Then came poetry: “If you’re ashamed of me, dah dah, then Pecans to you! Pecans to you!” The next verse was the same kind of stuff, with the last line, “Almonds to you! Almonds to you!” Each one was “Nuts to you!” in a different form.

  So I had to use the pencils with the names on them. What else could I do?

  It wasn’t long before I had to go to Los Alamos. Robert Oppenheimer, who was in charge of the project, arranged for Arlene to stay in the nearest hospital, in Albuquerque, about a hundred miles away. I had time off every weekend to see her, so I would hitchhike down on a Saturday, see Arlene in the afternoon, and stay overnight in a hotel there in Albuquerque. Then on Sunday morning I would see Arlene again, and hitchhike back to Los Alamos in the afternoon.

  During the week I would often get letters from her. Some of them, like the one written on a jigsaw-puzzle blank and then taken apart and sent in a sack, resulted in little notes from the army censor, such as “Please tell your wife we don’t have time to play games around here.” I didn’t tell her anything. I liked her to play games—even though she often put me in various uncomfortable but amusing conditions from which I could not escape.

  One time, near the beginning of May, newspapers mysteriously appeared in almost everybody’s mailbox at Los Alamos. The whole damn place was full of them—hundreds of newspapers. You know the kind—you open it up and there’s this headline screaming in thick letters across the front page: ENTIRE NATION CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY OF R.P. FEYNMAN!

  Arlene was playing her game with the world. She had a lot of time to think. She would read magazines, and send away for this and that. She was always cooking up something. (She must have got help with the names from Nick Metropolis or one of the other guys at Los Alamos who would often visit her.) Arlene was in her room, but she was in the world, writing me crazy letters and sending away for all kinds of stuff.

  One time she sent me a big catalog of kitchen equipment—the kind you need for enormous institutions like prisons, which have a lot of people in them. It showed everything from blowers and hoods for stoves to huge pots and pans. So I’m thinking, “What the hell is this?”

  It reminded me of the time I was up at MIT and Arlene sent me a catalog describing huge boats, from warships to ocean liners—great big boats. I wrote to her: “What’s the idea?”

  She writes back: “I just thought that maybe, when we get married, we could buy a boat.”

  I write, “Are you crazy? It’s all out of proportion!”

  Then another catalog comes: it’s for big yachts—forty-foot schooners and stuff like that—for very rich people. She writes, “Since you said no to the other boats, maybe we could get one of these.”

  I write, “Look: you’re way out of scale!”

  Soon another catalog comes: it’s for various kinds of motor boats—Chriscraft this and that.

  I write, “Too expensive!”

  Finally, I get a note: “This is your last chance, Richard. You’re always saying no.” It turns out a friend of hers has a rowboat she wants to sell for $15—a used rowboat—and maybe we could buy it so we could row around in the water next summer.

  So, yes. I mean, how can you say no after all that?

  Well, I’m still trying to figure out what this big catalog for institutional kitchen equipment is leading to, when another catalog comes: it’s for hotels and restaurants—supplies for small and medium-sized hotels and restaurants. Then a few days later, a catalog for the kitchen in your new home comes.

  When I go down to Albuquerque the next Saturday, I find out what it’s all about. There’s a little charcoal broiler in her room—she’s bought it through the mail from Sears. It’s about eighteen inches across, with little legs.

  “I thought we could ha
ve steaks,” Arlene says.

  “How the hell can we use it in the room, here, with all the smoke and everything?”

  “Oh, no,” she says. “All you have to do is take it out on the lawn. Then you can cook us steaks every Sunday.”

  The hospital was right on Route 66, the main road across the United States! “I can’t do that,” I said. “I mean, with all the cars and trucks going by, all the people on the sidewalk walking back and forth, I can’t just go out there and start cookin’ steaks on the lawn!”

  “What do you care what other people think?” (Arlene tortured me with that!) “Okay,” she says, opening a drawer, “we’ll compromise: you don’t have to wear the chefs hat and the gloves.”

  She holds up a hat—it’s a real chefs hat—and gloves. Then she says, “Try on the apron,” as she unfolds it. It has something silly written across it, like “BAR-B-Q,KING,” or something.

  “Okay, okay!” I say, horrified. “I’ll cook the steaks on the lawn!” So every Saturday or Sunday, I’d go out there on Route 66 and cook steaks.

  Then there were the Christmas cards. One day, only a few weeks after I had arrived at Los Alamos, Arlene says, “I thought it would be nice to send Christmas cards to everybody. Would you like to see the ones I picked out?”

  They were nice cards, all right, but inside they said Merry Christmas, from Rich & Putsy. “I can’t send these to Fermi and Bethe,” I protested. “I hardly even know them!”

  “What do you care what other people think?”—naturally. So we sent them.

  Next year comes around, and by this time I know Fermi. I know Bethe. I’ve been over at their houses. I’ve taken care of their kids. We’re all very friendly.

  Somewhere along the line, Arlene says to me, in a very formal tone, “You haven’t asked me about our Christmas cards this year, Richard…”

  FEAR goes through me. “Uh, well, let’s see the cards.”

  The cards say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, from Richard and Arlene Feynman. “Well, that’s fine,” I say. “They’re very nice. They’ll go fine for everybody.”