"Shhhh!" he hissed. "She'll hear you."
"Shhhh!" I echoed. "Sorry. I'll just sit here in the corner and keep out of everyone's way."
The haze was coming over me, but through it I could see people staring at me. I guess I was muttering to myself—too audibly. I don't remember what I said. A little while later I had the feeling that people were leaving unusually early, but I didn't pay much attention until Nemur came up and stood in front of me.
"Just who the hell do you think you are, that you can behave that way? I have never seen such insufferable rudeness in my life."
I struggled to my feet. "Now, what makes you say that?"
Strauss tried to restrain him, but he spluttered and gasped out: "I say it, because you have no gratitude or understanding of the situation. After all, you are indebted to these people if not to us—in more ways than one."
"Since when is a guinea pig supposed to be grateful?" I shouted. "I've served your purposes, and now I'm trying to work out your mistakes, so how the hell does that make me indebted to anyone?"
Strauss started to move in to break it up, but Nemur stopped him. "Just a minute. I want to hear this. I think it's time we had this out."
"He's had too much to drink," said his wife.
"Not that much," snorted Nemur. "He's speaking pretty clearly. I've put up with a lot from him. He's endangered—if not actually destroyed—our work, and now I want to hear from his own mouth what he thinks his justification is."
"Oh, forget it," I said. "You don't really want to hear the truth."
"But I do, Charlie. At least your version of the truth. I want to know if you feel any gratitude for all the things that have been done for you—the abilities you've developed, the things you've learned, the experiences you've had. Or do you think possibly you were better off before?"
"In some ways, yes."
That shocked them.
"I've learned a lot in the past few months," I said. "Not only about Charlie Gordon, but about life and people, and I've discovered that nobody really cares about Charlie Gordon, whether he's a moron or a genius. So what difference does it make?"
"Oh," laughed Nemur. "You're feeling sorry for yourself. What did you expect? This experiment was calculated to raise your intelligence, not to make you popular. We had no control over what happened to your personality, and you've developed from a likeable, retarded young man into an arrogant, self-centered, antisocial bastard."
"The problem, dear professor, is that you wanted someone who could be made intelligent but still be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap the honors you seek. The hitch is that I'm a person."
He was angry, and I could see he was torn between ending the fight and trying once more to beat me down. "You're being unfair, as usual. You know we've always treated you well—done everything we could for you."
"Everything but treat me as a human being. You've boasted time and again that I was nothing before the experiment, and I know why. Because if I was nothing, then you were responsible for creating me, and that makes you my lord and master. You resent the fact that I don't show my gratitude every hour of the day. Well, believe it or not,
I am grateful. But what you did for me—wonderful as it is—doesn't give you the right to treat me like an experimental animal. I'm an individual now, and so was Charlie before he ever walked into that lab. You look shocked! Yes, suddenly we discover that I was always a person—even before—and that challenges your belief that someone with an I.Q. of less than 100 doesn't deserve consideration. Professor Nemur, I think when you look at me your conscience bothers you."
"I've heard enough," he snapped. "You're drunk"
"Ah, no," I assured him. "Because if I get drunk, you'll see a different Charlie Gordon from the one you've come to know. Yes, the other Charlie who walked in the darkness is still here with us. Inside me."
"He's gone out of his head," said Mrs. Nemur. "He's talking as if there were two Charlie Gordons. You'd better look after him, doctor."
Dr. Strauss shook his head. "No. I know what he means. It's come up recently in therapy sessions. A peculiar dissociation has taken place in the past month or so. He's had several experiences of perceiving himself as he was before the experiment—as a separate and distinct individual still functioning in his consciousness—as if the old Charlie were struggling for control of the body—"
"No! I never said that! Not struggling for control. Charlie is there, all right, but not struggling with me. Just waiting. He has never tried to take over or tried to prevent me from doing anything I wanted to do." Then, remembering about Alice, I modified it. "Well, almost never. The humble, self-effacing Charlie you were all talking about a while ago is just waiting patiently. I'll admit I'm like him in a number of ways, but humility and self-effacement are not among them. I've learned how little they get a person in this world.
"You've become cynical," said Nemur. "That's all this opportunity has meant to you. Your genius has destroyed your faith in the world and in your fellow men."
"That's not completely true," I said softly. "But I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damned thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn."
I helped myself to another martini from the nearby sideboard and continued my sermon.
"Don't misunderstand me," I said. "Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.
"When I was retarded I had lots of friends. Now I have no one. Oh, I know lots of people. Lots and lots of people. But I don't have any real friends. Not like I used to have in the bakery. Not a friend in the world who means anything to me, and no one I mean anything to." I discovered that my speech was becoming slurred, and there was a lightness in my head. "That can't be right, can it?" I insisted. "I mean, what do you think? Do you think that's… that's right?"
Strauss came over and took my arm.
"Charlie, maybe you'd better lie down a while. You've had too much to drink."
"Why y'all looking at me like that? What did I say wrong? Did I say something wrong? I din't mean to say anything that wasn't right."
I heard the words thick in my mouth, as if my face had been shot full of novocaine. I was drunk—completely out of control. At that moment, almost with the flick of a switch, I was watching the scene from the dining room doorway, and I could see myself as the other Charlie— there near the sideboard, drink in hand, eyes wide and frightened.
"I always try to do the right things. My mother always taught me to be nice to people because she said that way you won't get into trouble and you'll always have lots of friends."
I could see by the way he was twitching and writhing that he had to get to the bathroom. Oh, my God, not there in front of them. "Excuse me, please," he said, "I got to go…" Somehow, in that drunken stupor, I managed to turn him away from them and head him toward the bathroom.
He made it in time, and after a few seconds I was again in control. I rested my cheek against the wall, and then washed my face with cool water. Still groggy, but I knew I was going to be all right.
That's when I saw Charlie watching me from the mirror behind the washbasin. I don't know how I knew it was Charlie and not me. Something about the dull, questioning look in his face. His eyes, wide and frightened, as if at one word from me he would turn and run deep into the dimension of the mirrored world. But he didn't run. He just stared back at me, mouth open, jaw hanging loosely.