John D. MacDonald
Cosmetics
Jason Blood sat in a deep chair in his study and for the dozenth time pressed the button in the chair arm which projected Carol’s letter onto the screen opposite him. The first projection had been a considerable shock, but with subsequent projections, in the light of his newly discovered loneliness, he found that he was able to view her animated face with the same contempt, the same amused contempt that he viewed all the others. But there was pain in it too, because she had been his wife for many years.
He stopped listening to the sense of her words and examined the structure of her face. He knew that it was Carol because of the identification medallion on the left side of her tunic. He realized that he was glad that, throughout. all of her autocosmetic changes she had retained a delicate bone structure around her eyes, at her temples. Not like some of the others who diverted themselves by frequently-shifting to the grotesque, making life a succession of masks — the lovely and the horrible, a spiced cookery of flesh and outlook.
He guessed that probably he had been misled by her conformity to what he liked in her — the tall leanness, the fragility and the wide, clear eyes.
But the letter was a refutation.
The face on the screen looked into his eyes. “I suppose I’m somewhat of a coward, my darling, in telling you this, way, but you see if I tried to tell you in person, you’d find some way to get around me.
“Do you remember when we were first married? You had none of these silly scruples about autocosmetics at that time. Our love was freshened by the rhythm of variety. Remember how I’d leave you a note telling you how I wanted you to look? Darling, you were such a wonderful succession of tall, strong men — and I tried so hard to make myself into all the types of beauty that you wanted to possess.
“But now these things which you mysteriously label ‘principles’ have come between us. You have made no change in four years, and. you talk about ‘solidification of personality’ instead of about what you can do to please me. Jason, darling, I don’t like the form you selected for yourself four years ago. By retaining it, you are not living up to your responsibilities as my husband. I hate that lean, ascetic face, the thinning Hair, the knobbed knuckles, the harsh look in your eyes.
“You seem to have lost all gayety. I am constantly making excuses to my friends. They consider you queer and reactionary. Our love needs freshening, my dear, and you refuse to help. I have done all that I can do. You take life too seriously, and you pay too much attention to that horrible Karl Dane and to your interminable discussion with him.
“So I am leaving you, Jason. I have found a man who is something like what you used to be, and I have instructed him on the autosuggestions you used so that he can look as you used to look. I will always pretend that he is actually you, my darling.
“Please forgive me, and when you decide that you have been wrong, I will come back to you.”
The vision on the screen faded. Jason Blood stood up and walked over to the wide window that looked across the terraced parks of the city. The bright afternoon sun shone on the couples and groups that strolled aimlessly along the paths. The men were all tall and incredibly handsome. The long-limbed women were the apex of the dream of beauty which had existed through the ages.
He cursed silently and turned away from the window. Where the others saw health and beauty, he saw only an incredible dullness. He smacked his bony fist into his palm. If only he could drop this thing in which he believed. The autocosmeton which Carol had used so frequently stood silently in a far room of the house. A constant temptation. If he could forget what he believed in, if he could subject himself to the machine, put on the disk of identification and then seek out Carol — see the new delight and the love in her eyes—
He heard footsteps approaching, recognized the heavy steps of Karl Dane, and smiled bitterly as he realized how close he had been to giving up what they both believed in.
Karl Dane was a big man with pads of flesh ground his small eyes, a mountainous belly and fat, freckled hands. He was an atrocity in a city of beauty.
He scowled at Jason, sat heavily in a chair and said: “Fenner has gone over.”
“No!”
“Yes. He got tired of fighting — tired of trying to beat into their thick skulls the fact that they’re killing the race. He turned himself into a pretty boy this morning and now he’s out roaming the city, beaming foolishly at the rest of them. What’s the matter with you?”
“Carol left me this morning,” Jason said flatly.
Karl chuckled? “Poor Jason! You thought she was different! didn’t you? I knew better. She’s like the rest of them. She just stuck around hoping that you’d change, that you’d decide to give up your silly ideas about being a savior of the race.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Don’t get touchy, boy. You and I can’t afford to quarrel. We’re the only two thinking beings left in the city.”
Jason felt his quick irritation slip away. He sat down and said helplessly, “Karl, we’re not getting anywhere. I’d like to get a sledge and smash every autocosmeton in the city.”
“And they’d kill you with a smile and rebuild them. I tell you, we’ve got to pick our recruits young and get them to sign a solemn pledge that they will never alter the faces and figures that God gave them. Then we’ll begin to get some place.”
“But Karl, we can’t offer them a thing except a shorter life.”
Karl Dane frowned heavily and stared at the wall. “For the last week, Jason, I’ve been doing research into how it all started. Maybe by backtracking we can find the answer. Let me give you the highlights.
“It started back in the mid-thirties of the last century. Maybe a little before. In 1933 C. L. Hull did some work on suggestibility. In 1938 H. F. Dunbar published a work called ‘Emotions and Bodily Changes’ — through Columbia University Press. F. A. Pattie did some work in 1941 on Hypnotic Suggestions. All that was the basic groundwork.
“In 1952 L. K. Bagwell published ‘Hypnosis for Anaesthesia and Hemorrhage Control, and got a lot of publicity. Then Labot, in 1955, stimulated by Bagwell’s work, applied hypnotic suggestion to healing and managed to gravity stimulate the growth of tissue. The early boys showed that by a concentration of the psychic processes, localized peripheral effects could be produced.
“With the drugs that Labot used, he could go far beyond mere peripheral effects — in fact, by a concentration of the psychic processes, he could cause internal tissues to part.
“You can see that all this was heading toward the question of hypnotism versus operative technique. But it wasn’t until 1964 that the suggestions to the patient in hypnosis could be adequately controlled. The four phases — anaesthesia, destruction of tissue, hemorrhage control and healing — were already in existence. With the development of better control of suggestibility, good hypnosurgeons began to do simple operations.
“They learned from these operations, and began to do more complex ones. The successes were startling, and manual surgery began to die out. Why weaken the abdominal wall with an incision when the patient himself can be forced to concentrate his psychic processes in such a manner as to destroy his own vermiform appendix and heal the surrounding tissue?
“Everything was just dandy until in 1965 the famous clinical case of a Mrs. R. M. occurred. Now this woman was as ugly as sin — so ugly that the mere fact of her ugliness was a matter of such great importance to her that under hypnosis the question of autosuggestion wasn’t entirely wiped out. During a hypnotonsilectomy her subconscious shot additional suggestions into the operation so that, after it was over, an outsize nose had been reformed, a low forehead had increased in height and a set of protruding teeth had turned back into a more normal position. Her own husband barely recognized her. She got a big publicity play and every haggard hag in the world started to scream for cosmetic hypnosurgery.