"Sometimes though, as I look back on the apocalypse I worked within his vision of grandeur, I experience a fleeting sense of lost beauty—because, for a single moment, his abnormally intense feelings were my feelings, and he felt that his dream was the most beautiful thing in the world."
He refilled their glasses.
"That wasn't exactly what I meant," she said.
"I know."
"I meant something real."
"It was more real than real, I assure you.'*
"I don't doubt it, but..."
"—But I destroyed the foundation you were laying for your argument. Okay, I apologize. I'll hand it back to you. Here's something that could be reaclass="underline"
"We are moving along the edge of a great bowl of sand," he said. "Into it, the snow is gently drifting. In the spring the snow will melt, the waters will run down into the earth, or be evaporated away by the heat of the sun. Then only the sand will remain. Nothing grows in the sand, except for an occasional cactus. Nothing lives here but snakes, a few birds, insects, burrowing things, and a wandering coyote or two. In the afternoon these things will look for shade. Any place where there's an old fence post or a rock or a skull or a cactus to block out the sun, there you will witness life cowering before the elements. But the colors are beyond belief, and the elements are more lovely, almost, than the things they destroy."
"There is no such place near here," she said.
"If I say it, then there is. Isn't there? I've seen if
"Yes ... you're right."
"And it doesn't matter if it's a painting by a woman named O'Keefe, or something right outside our window, does it? If I've seen it?"
"I acknowledge the truth of the diagnosis," she said. "Do you want to speak it for me?"
"No, go ahead."
He refilled the small glasses once more."The damage is in my eyes," she told him, "not my brain."
He lit her cigarette.
"I can see with other eyes if I can enter other brains."
He lit his own cigarette.
"Neuroparticipation is based upon the fact that two nervous systems can share the same impulses, the same fantasies. .. ."
"Controlled fantasies."
"I could perform therapy and at the same time experience genuine visual impressions."
"No," said Render.
"You don't know what it's like to be cut off from a whole area of stimuli! To know that a Mongoloid idiot can experience something you can never know—and that he cannot appreciate it because, like you, he was condemned before birth in a court of biological hapstance, - in a place where there is no justice—only fortuity, pure and simple."
"The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe."
"I'm not asking the universe to help me—I'm asking you.'*
"I'm sorry," said Render.
"Why won't you help me?"
"At this moment you are demonstrating my main reason."
"Which is .. .T
"Emotion. This thing means far too much to you. When the therapist is in-phase with a patient he is narcoelectrically removed from most of his own bodily sensations. This is necessary—because his mind must be completely absorbed by the task at hand. It is also necessary that his emotions undergo a similar suspension. This, of course, is impossible in the one sense that a person always emotes to some degree. But the therapist's emotions are sublimated into a generalized feeling of exhilaration—or, as in my own case, into an artistic reverie. With you, however, the 'seeing' would be too much. You would be in constant danger of losing control of the dream."
"I disagree with you."
"Of course you do. But the fact remains that you would be dealing, and dealing constantly, with me abnormal.
The power of a neurosis is unimaginable to ninety-nine point etcetera percent of the population, because we can never adequately judge the intensity of our own—let alone those of others, when we only see them from the outside. That is why no neuroparticipant will ever undertake to treat a full-blown psychotic. The few pioneers in that area are all themselves in therapy today. It would be like diving into a maelstrom. If the therapist loses the upper hand in an intense session, he becomes the Shaped rather than the Shaper. The synapses respond like a fission reaction when nervous impulses are artificially augmented. The transference effect is almost instantaneous.
"I did an awful lot of skiing five years ago. This is because I was a claustrophobe. I had to run and it took me six months to beat the thing—all because of one tiny lapse that occurred in a measureless fraction of an instant. I had to refer the patient to another therapist. And this was only a •minor repercussion. —If you were to go gaga over the scenery, girl, you could wind up in a rest home for life."
She finished her drink and Render refilled the glass. The night raced by. They had left the city far behind them, and the road was open and clear. The darkness eased more and more of itself between the falling flakes. The Spinner picked up speed.
"AH right," she admitted, "maybe you're right. Still, though, I think you can help me."
"How?" he asked.
"Accustom me to seeing, so that the images will lose their novelty, the emotions wear off. Accept me as a patient and rid me of my sight-anxiety. Then what you have said so far will cease to apply. I will be able to undertake the training then, and give my full attention to therapy. I'll be able to sublimate the sight-pleasure into something else."
Render wondered.
Perhaps it could be done. It would be a difficult undertaking, though.
It might also make therapeutic history.
No one was really qualified to try it, because no one had ever tried it before.
But Eileen Shallot was a rarity—no, a unique item— for it was likely she was the only person in the world whocombined the necessary technical background with the unique problem.
He drained his glass, refilled it, refilled hers.
He was still considering the problem as the "RECOORDINATE" light came on and the car pulled into a cutoff and stood there. He switched off the buzzer and sat there for a long while, thinking.
It was not often that other persons heard him acknowledge his feelings regarding his skill. His colleagues considered him modest. Offhand, though, it might be noted that he was aware that the day a better neuroparticipant began practicing would be the day that a troubled homo sapien was to be treated by something but immeasurably less than angels.
Two drinks remained. Then he tossed the emptied bottle into the backbin.
"You know something?" he finally said.
**What?"
*1t might be worth a try."
He swiveled about then and leaned forward to recoordinate, but she was there first. As he pressed the buttons and the S-7 swung around, she kissed him. Below her dark glasses her cheeks were moist.
The suicide bothered him more than it should have, and Mrs. Lambert had called the day before to cancel her appointment. So Render decided to spend the morning being pensive. Accordingly, he entered the office wearing a cigar and a frown.
"Did you see ... ?" asked Mrs. Hedges.
"Yes." He pitched his coat onto the table that stood in the far corner of the room. He crossed to the window, stared down. "Yes," he repeated, "I was driving by with my windows clear. They were still cleaning up when I passed."
"Did you know him?"
"I don't even know the name yet. How could I?"
"Priss Tully just called me—she's a receptionist for that engineering outfit up on the eighty-sixth. She says it was James Irizarry, an ad designer who had offices down the hall from them— That's a long way to fall. He must have been unconscious when he hit, huh? He bounced offthe building. If you open the window and lean out you can see—off to the left there—where..."