Torstein laughed heartily. "Boy, you can't afford not to take a vacation just now! Did you ever consider that?"
"No, I guess not."
"Well, consider it! You're tired, tense, all keyed-up. You've been working too hard."
"I've been on leave of absence all week," Lanigan said. He glanced at his watch. The gold case had turned to lead, but the time seemed accurate enough. Nearly two hours had passed since he had begun this conversation.
"It isn't good enough," Torstein was saying. "You've stayed right here in town, right close to your work. You need to get in touch with nature. Tom, when was the last time you went camping?"
"Camping? I don't think I've ever gone camping."
"There, you see! Boy, you've got to put yourself back in touch with real things. Not streets and buildings, but mountains and rivers."
Lanigan looked at his watch again and was relieved to see it turn back to gold. He was glad; he had paid sixty dollars for that case.
"Trees and lakes," Torstein was rhapsodizing. "The feel of grass growing under your feet, the sight of tall black mountains marching across a golden sky—"
Lanigan shook his head. "I've been in the country, George. It doesn't do anything for me."
Torstein was obstinate. "You must get away from artificialities."
"It all seems equally artificial," Lanigan said. "Trees or buildings — what's the difference?"
"Men make buildings," Torstein intoned. "But God makes trees."
Lanigan had his doubts about both propositions, but he wasn't going to tell them to Torstein. "You might have something there. I'll think about it."
"You do that," Torstein said. "It happens I know the perfect place. It's in Maine, Tom, and it's right near this little lake—"
Torstein was a master of the interminable description. Luckily for Lanigan, there was a diversion. Across the street, a house burst into flames.
"Hey, whose house is that?" Lanigan asked.
"Makelby's," Torstein said. "That's his second fire this month."
"Maybe we ought to give the alarm."
"You're right. I'll do it myself," Torstein said. "Remember what I told you about that place in Maine, Tom."
Torstein turned to go, and something rather humorous happened. As he stepped over the pavement, the concrete liquefied under his left foot. Caught unawares, Torstein went in ankle-deep. His forward motion pitched him headfirst into the street.
Tom hurried to help him out before the concrete hardened again. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Twisted my damned ankle," Torstein muttered. "It's OK, I can walk."
He limped off to report the fire. Lanigan stayed and watched. He judged the fire had been caused by spontaneous combustion. In a few minutes, as he expected, it put itself out by spontaneous decombustion.
One shouldn't be pleased by another man's misfortunes;
but Lanigan couldn't help chuckling about Torstein's twisted ankle. Not even the sudden appearance of flood waters on Main Street could mar his good spirits.
Then he remembered his dream, and the panic began again. He walked quickly to the doctor's offic.
Dr Sampson's office was small and dark this week. The old grey sofa was gone; in its place were two Louis Quinze chairs and a hammock. The worn carpet had rewoven itself, and there was a cigarette burn on the puce ceiling. But the portrait of Andretti was in its usual place on the wall, and the big free-form ashtray was scrupulously clean.
The inner door opened and Dr Sampson's head popped out. "Hi," he said. "Won't be a minute." His head popped back in again.
Sampson was as good as his word. It took him exactly three seconds by Lanigan's watch to do whatever he had to do. One second later Lanigan was stretched out on the leather couch with a fresh paper doily under his head. And Dr Sampson was saying, "Well, Tom, how have things been going?"
"The same," Lanigan said. "Worse."
"The dream?"
Lanigan nodded.
"Let's just run through it again."
"I'd rather not," Lanigan said.
"Afraid?"
"More afraid than ever."
"Even now?"
"Yes. Especially now."
There was a moment of therapeutic silence. Then Dr Sampson said, "You've spoken before of your fear of this dream; but you've never told me why you fear it so."
"Well... It sounds so silly."
Sampson's face was serious, quiet, composed; the face of a man who found nothing silly, who was constitutionally incapable of finding anything silly. It was a pose, perhaps, but one which Lanigan found reassuring.
"All right, I'll tell you," Lanigan said abruptly. Then he stopped.
"Go on," Dr Sampson said.
"Well, it's because I believe that somehow, in some way I don't understand ..."
"Yes, go on," Sampson said.
"Well, that somehow the world of my dream is becoming the real world." He stopped again, then went on with a rush. "And some day I am going to wake up and find myself in that world. And then that world will have become the real one and this world will be the dream."
He turned to see how this mad revelation had affected Sampson. If the doctor was disturbed, he didn't show it. He was quietly lighting his pipe with the smouldering tip of his left forefinger. He blew out his forefinger and said, "Yes, please go on."
"Go on? But that's it, that's the whole thing!"
A spot the size of a quarter appeared on Sampson's mauve carpet. It darkened, thickened, grew into a small fruit tree. Sampson picked one of the purple pods, sniffed it, then set it down on his desk. He looked at Lanigan sternly, sadly.
"You've told me about your dreamworld before, Tom."
Lanigan nodded.
"We have discussed it, traced its origins, explored its meaning for you. In past months we have discovered, I believe, why you need to cripple yourself with this nightmare fear."
Lanigan nodded unhappily.
"Yet you refuse the insights," Sampson said. "You forget each time that your dreamworld is a dream, nothing but a dream, operated by arbitrary dream laws which you have invented to satisfy your psychic needs."
"I wish I could believe that," Lanigan said. "The trouble is, my dreamworld is so damnably reasonable."
"Not at all," Sampson said. "It is just that your delusion is hermetic, self-enclosed, and self-sustaining. A man's actions are based upon certain assumptions about the nature of the world. Grant his assumptions and his behaviour is entirely reasonable. But to change those assumptions, those fundamental axioms, is nearly impossible. For example, how do you prove to a man that he is not being controlled by a secret radio which only he can hear?"
"I see the problem," Lanigan muttered. "And that's me?"
"Yes, Tom; that, in elfect, is you. You want me to prove to you that this world is real, and that the world of your dream is false. Your propose to give up your fantasy if I supply you with those necessary proofs."
"Yes, exactly!" Lanigan cried.
"But you see, I can't supply them," Sampson said. "The nature of the world is apparent, but unprovable."
Lanigan thought for a while. Then he said, "Look, Doc, I'm not as sick as the guy with the secret radio, am I?"
"No, you're not. You're more reasonable, more rational. You have doubts about the reality of the world; but luckily, you also have doubts about the validity of your delusion."
"Then give it a try," Lanigan said. "I understand your problem; but I swear to you, I'll accept anything I can possibly bring myself to accept."
"It's not my field, really," Sampson said. "This sort of thing calls for a metaphysician. I don't think I'd be very skilled at it..."
"Give it a try," Lanigan pleaded.
"All right, here goes." Sampson's forehead wrinkled as he concentrated. Then he said, "It seems to me that we inspect the world through our senses, and therefore we must in the final analysis accept the testimony of those senses."