taut across high cheekbones. His eyes were the brightest pale blue, but his eyebrows were glossy black. He wore his coarse, kinky black hair long on top, but short at the sides—so he seemed even taller than his lanky five feet, ten-inch frame. He weighed so little—never more than 130 pounds—that he gave an impression of flimsiness. His straight Roman nose, thin lips and large, almost pointed ears accentuated an image of exaggerated delicacy. He spoke in fully grammatical sentences with the kind of ornate European politeness his mother had taught him. But as he talked, his long, thin hands made his gestures seem somehow contorted. His appearance was mesmerizing, and slightly bizarre.
His behavior in Cambridge over the next three years did nothing to soften the impression his appearance gave of a studious, socially inept and immature young man. As surely as New Mexico had opened up Robert’s personality, Cambridge drove him back to his former introversion. At Harvard his intellect thrived, but his social development floundered; or so it seemed to those who knew him. Harvard was an intellectual bazaar filled with delights for the mind. But it offered Robert none of the careful guidance and devoted nurturing of his Ethical Culture experience. He was on his own, and so he retreated into the security his powerful intellect assured. He seemed incapable of not flaunting his eccentricities. His diet often consisted of little more than chocolate, beer and artichokes. Lunch was often just a “black and tan”—a piece of toast slathered with peanut butter and topped with chocolate syrup. Most of his classmates thought him diffident. Fortunately, both Francis Fergusson and Paul Horgan were also at Harvard that year, so he had at least two soul mates. But he made very few new friends. One was Jeffries Wyman, a Boston Brahmin who was beginning graduate studies in biology. “He [Robert] found social adjustment very difficult,” Wyman recalled, “and I think he was often very unhappy. I suppose he was lonely and felt he didn’t fit in well. . . . We were good friends, and he had some other friends, but there was something that he lacked . . . because our contacts were largely, I should say wholly, on an intellectual basis.”
Introverted and intellectual, Robert was already reading such dark-spirited writers as Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield. His favorite Shakespearean character was Hamlet. Horgan recalled years later that “Robert had bouts of melancholy, deep, deep depressions as a youngster. He would seem to be incommunicado emotionally for a day or two at a time. That happened while I was staying with him once or twice, and I was very distressed, had no idea what was causing it.”
Sometimes Robert’s flair for the intellectual went beyond the merely ostentatious. Wyman recalled a hot spring day when Oppenheimer walked into his room and said, “What intolerable heat. I have been spending all afternoon lying on my bed reading Jeans’ Dynamical Theory of Gases. What else can one do in weather like this?” (Forty years later, Oppenheimer still had in his possession a weathered and salt-encrusted copy of James Hopwood Jeans’ book Electricity and Magnetism. )
In the spring of Robert’s freshman year, he formed a friendship with Frederick Bernheim, a pre-med student who had graduated from the Ethical Culture School a year after him. They shared an interest in science, and with Fergusson about to leave for England on a Rhodes Scholarship, Robert soon anointed Bernheim as his new best friend. Unlike most college-age men—who tend to have many acquaintances and few deep friendships— Robert’s friendships were few and intense.
In September 1923, at the beginning of their sophomore year, he and Bernheim decided to share adjacent rooms in an old house at 60 Mount Auburn Street, close to the offices of the Harvard Crimson. Robert decorated his room with an oriental rug, oil paintings and etchings he brought from home,
His behavior in Cambridge over the next three years did nothing to soften the impression his appearance gave of a studious, socially inept and immature young man. As surely as New Mexico had opened up Robert’s personality, Cambridge drove him back to his former introversion. At Harvard his intellect thrived, but his social development floundered; or so it seemed to those who knew him. Harvard was an intellectual bazaar filled with delights for the mind. But it offered Robert none of the careful guidance and devoted nurturing of his Ethical Culture experience. He was on his own, and so he retreated into the security his powerful intellect assured. He seemed incapable of not flaunting his eccentricities. His diet often consisted of little more than chocolate, beer and artichokes. Lunch was often just a “black and tan”—a piece of toast slathered with peanut butter and topped with chocolate syrup. Most of his classmates thought him diffident. Fortunately, both Francis Fergusson and Paul Horgan were also at Harvard that year, so he had at least two soul mates. But he made very few new friends. One was Jeffries Wyman, a Boston Brahmin who was beginning graduate studies in biology. “He [Robert] found social adjustment very difficult,” Wyman recalled, “and I think he was often very unhappy. I suppose he was lonely and felt he didn’t fit in well. . . . We were good friends, and he had some other friends, but there was something that he lacked . . . because our contacts were largely, I should say wholly, on an intellectual basis.”
Introverted and intellectual, Robert was already reading such dark-spirited writers as Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield. His favorite Shakespearean character was Hamlet. Horgan recalled years later that “Robert had bouts of melancholy, deep, deep depressions as a youngster. He would seem to be incommunicado emotionally for a day or two at a time. That happened while I was staying with him once or twice, and I was very distressed, had no idea what was causing it.”
Sometimes Robert’s flair for the intellectual went beyond the merely ostentatious. Wyman recalled a hot spring day when Oppenheimer walked into his room and said, “What intolerable heat. I have been spending all afternoon lying on my bed reading Jeans’ Dynamical Theory of Gases. What else can one do in weather like this?” (Forty years later, Oppenheimer still had in his possession a weathered and salt-encrusted copy of James Hopwood Jeans’ book Electricity and Magnetism. )
In the spring of Robert’s freshman year, he formed a friendship with Frederick Bernheim, a pre-med student who had graduated from the Ethical Culture School a year after him. They shared an interest in science, and with Fergusson about to leave for England on a Rhodes Scholarship, Robert soon anointed Bernheim as his new best friend. Unlike most college-age men—who tend to have many acquaintances and few deep friendships— Robert’s friendships were few and intense.
In September 1923, at the beginning of their sophomore year, he and Bernheim decided to share adjacent rooms in an old house at 60 Mount Auburn Street, close to the offices of the Harvard Crimson. Robert decorated his room with an oriental rug, oil paintings and etchings he brought from home,
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