Polen said, "It came to nothing in itself. It gave rise to certain new principles of computing, however, so it wasn't a total loss."
Why did they talk about it?
Emotions! What right had anyone to meddle with emotions? Words were invented to conceal emotions. It was the dreadfulness of raw emotion that had made language a basic necessity.
Polen knew. His machines had by-passed the screen of verbalization and dragged the unconscious into the sunlight. The boy and the girl, the son and the mother. For that matter, the cat and the mouse or the snake and the bird. The data rattled together in its universality and it had all poured into and through Polen until he could no longer bear the touch of life.
In the last few years he had so painstakingly schooled his thoughts in other directions. Now these two came, dabbling in his mind, stirring up its mud.
Casey batted abstractedly across the tip of his nose to dislodge a fly. "Too bad," he said. "I used to think you could get some fascinating things out of, say, rats. Well, maybe not fascinating, but then not as boring as the stuff you would get out of our somewhat-human beings. I used to think-"
Polen remembered what he used to think.
Casey said, "Damn this DOT. The flies feed on it, I think. You know, I'm going to do graduate work in chemistry and then get a job on insecticides. So help me. I'll personally get something that will kill the vermin."
They were in Casey's room, and it had a somewhat keroseny odor from the recently applied insecticide.
Polen shrugged and said, "A folded newspaper will always kill."
Casey detected a non-existent sneer and said instantly, "How would you summarize your first year's work, Polen? I mean aside from the true summary any scientist could state if he dared, by which I mean: 'Nothing.' "
"Nothing," said Polen. "There's your summary."
"Go on," said Casey. "You use more dogs than the physiologists do and I bet the dogs mind the physiological experiments less. I would."
"Oh, leave him alone," said Winthrop. "You sound like a piano with 87 keys eternally out of order. You're a bore!"
You couldn't say that to Casey.
He said, with sudden liveliness, looking carefully away from Winthrop, "I'll tell you what you'll probably find in animals, if you look closely enough. Religion."
"What the dickens!" said Winthrop, outraged. "That's a foolish remark."
Casey smiled. "Now, now, Winthrop. Dickens is just a euphemism for devil and you don't want to be swearing."
"Don't teach me morals. And don't be blasphemous."
"What's blasphemous about it? Why shouldn't a flea consider the dog as something to be worshipped? It's the source of warmth, food, and all that's good for a flea."
"I don't want to discuss it."
"Why not? Do you good. You could even say that to an ant, an anteater is a higher order of creation. He would be too big for them to comprehend, too mighty to dream of resisting. He would move among them like an unseen, inexplicable whirlwind, visiting them with destruction and death. But that wouldn't spoil things for the ants. They would reason that destruction was simply their just punishment for evil. And the anteater wouldn't even know he was a deity. Or care."
Winthrop had gone white. He said, "I know you're saying this only to annoy me and I am sorry to see you risking your soul for a moment's amusement. Let me tell you this," his voice trembled a little, "and let me say it very seriously. The flies that torment you are your punishment in this life. Beelzebub, like all the forces of evil, may think he does evil, but it's only the ultimate good after all. The curse of Beelzebub is on you for your good. Perhaps it will succeed in getting you to change your way of life before it's too late."
He ran from the room.
Casey watched him go. He said, kughing, "I told you Winthrop believed in Beelzebub. It's funny the respectable names you can give to superstition." His laughter died a little short of its natural end.
There were two flies in the room, buzzing through the vapors toward him.
Polen rose and left in heavy depression. One year had taught him little, but it was already too much, and his laughter was thinning. Only his machines could analyze the emotions of animals properly, but he was already guessing too deeply concerning the emotions of men.
He did not like to witness wild murder-yearnings where others could see only a few words of unimportant quarrel.
Casey said, suddenly, "Say, come to think of it, you did try some of my flies, the way Winthrop says. How about that?"
"Did I? After twenty years, I scarcely remember," murmured Polen.
Winthrop said, "You must. We were in your laboratory and you complained that Casey's flies followed him even there. He suggested you analyze them and you did. You recorded their motions and buzzings and wing-wiping for half an hour or more. You played with a dozen different flies."
Polen shrugged.
"Oh, well," said Casey. "It doesn't matter. It was good seeing you, old man." The hearty hand-shake, the thump on the shoulder, the broad grin- to Polen it all translated into sick disgust on Casey's part that Polen was a "success" after all.
Polen said, "Let me hear from you sometimes."
The words were dull thumps. They meant nothing. Casey knew that. Polen knew that. Everyone knew that. But words were meant to hide emotion and when they failed, humanity loyally maintained the pretense.
Winthrop's grasp of the hand was gentler. He said, "This brought back old times, Polen. If you're ever in Cincinnati, why don't you stop in at the meeting-house? You'll always be welcome."
To Polen, it all breathed of the man's relief at Polen's obvious depression. Science, too, it seemed, was not the answer, and Winthrop's basic and ineradicable insecurity felt pleased at the company.
"I will," said Polen. It was the usual polite way of saying, I won't.
He watched them thread separately to other groups.
Winthrop would never know. Polen was sure of that. He wondered if Casey knew. It would be the supreme joke if Casey did not.
He had run Casey's flies, of course, not that once alone, but many times. Always the same answer! Always the same unpublishable answer.
With a cold shiver he could not quite control, Polen was suddenly conscious of a single fly loose in the room, veering aimlessly for a moment, then beating strongly and reverently in the direction Casey had taken a moment before.
Could Casey not know? Could it be the essence of the primal punishment that he never learn he was Beelzebub?
Casey! Lord of the Flies!
I suppose that one of those stock phrases for which everyone is responsible at one time or another is: "Well, whatever does he see in her?" Or, "Well, whatever does she see in him?"
It's a ridiculous question because the sort of thing that he sees in her or she sees in him that isn't visible to the general population is probably you-know-very-well-what.
Just the same, I'm as prone to sneer as the next fellow and when I see a movie in which the girl falls in love with a fellow who has no visible advantages outside of being tall, lean, strong, fearless, and incredibly handsome, I am naturally disgusted. "Whatever does she see in him?" I ask.
Pressed for a reason for the sneer, I can point out that this tan, lean, strong, fearless, and incredibly handsome fellow almost invariably has the brain capacity of a gnat. He speaks in an occasional grunt and views the world with dim eyes backed by a lackluster brain. He is known to all and sundry, and particularly to the girl who is trying to mask her mad passion for him, as a "big lug," or, possibly, as a "big galoot."