the hall, singling out, along the rows, various harmless wives, lab assistants, amanuenses, Lila, Miss Apple Pie. When one wanted to get the mind off Woman, it was often useful to take a look at women. Those down there were as solidly glazed forward toward the talking book as if it were a Four-Speed Wash-Dri one of them was shortly to be winning; these were not the wailing Trojan elite he had in mind.
“—to all those unknown but constant signalers, devotees of knowledge, here and elsewhere—”
He summoned his acquired knowledge of women: Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Tess, Lysistrata, Madame de Maupin, Fanny Hill, Moll Flanders—Fool!—all created by men. His mother, then: who had done as she chose, and let his father interpret her from the other side of the water. Other recalcitrant, but finally passive ladies. Old Margaret-I-accept-the-universe-Fuller, put down with a “Gad, she better!”, the final male answer, by old Carlyle, rumored impotent, but a man. Acceptance implies a choice however—what had been lurking, still lurked, in the tundra-dark of all the Margarets? He summoned all his own knowledge of the stubborner ones, his former wife, his last lover: what do the women do, these days, when they want, when they don’t want—? At the base of his spine, something plucked a guitar string and then was silent. They leave.
“—your language. I shall never have full control of it, of complications which, forgive me, I once regarded as unnecessary. But now it seems to me that if here long enough, one may grow the tongue for it—”
Yes, only some Ishi, hairy Ainu, last aborigine whom somebody has taught to prate square root; the complications are mine. Nothing that jukebox can say will ever approach the complex humanism of an empty stomach.
“—other apology. I had thought to find you—And instead, I find you—” A choke. A pause. “Now consider me that savage—the civilize’ being who think himself to be among savages.”
And Linhouse stood up again, ready to—shout? Smash? Run? Who could say. But he had the connection. “Yes,” said a voice in Holland Park. We are veree civilize’. ”
“—with thanks to this Center for providing opportunity. And for the marvelous facilities of Professor Van Wert Anders, without—as they say—whom—And now, as you like to say here, I will cut the cackle.” The top leaf of the book, all this time infinitesimally moving in an arc leftward, gave a last tweedle and lay over, giving way to the next one, which infinitesimally rose in its turn. “Herewith, my journal. Herewith … oh I am so proud … I.”
In the loge, a voice said something inaudible; then Anders’s head wobbled up on its long stalk. “Cut the … cut the …!” it said scratchily. “Cackle indeed!” It was a voice common enough to the professions here, a growing boy’s voice, testy as an old man’s. Ordinarily its timbre, that of a good square heel steadily treading eggshells, would have gone unnoticed. Now all heads in the auditorium turned to it, perhaps not for the reason its owner thought. “Nothing to do with this,” he said, “… miles out of my field … primitive peoples … not my beckyar-r-d.” From behind him there was somewhere a girl’s giggle, quickly quenched. It was true though: except for the har-r-d uptstate “r’s,” his voice was exactly—like the box.
“Anders—” Naughton the provost’s thick white shock of hair was trimmed to fall forward like that of certain bluff American business types, over a big face of healthy indoor red. And like them, he was very used to dealing with a republic of children, on whom the power, the money, the credit might nevertheless so often depend. “A while back, didn’t Security report some funny stuff down at your lab?”
“Oh, I’d forgotten that, sir. Why yes, looked as if somebody’d tried to run the works, and my notes were disturbed. No damage though. And I’ve no such apparatus as—as that.
“—to all those unknown but constant signalers, devotees of knowledge, here and elsewhere—”
He summoned his acquired knowledge of women: Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Tess, Lysistrata, Madame de Maupin, Fanny Hill, Moll Flanders—Fool!—all created by men. His mother, then: who had done as she chose, and let his father interpret her from the other side of the water. Other recalcitrant, but finally passive ladies. Old Margaret-I-accept-the-universe-Fuller, put down with a “Gad, she better!”, the final male answer, by old Carlyle, rumored impotent, but a man. Acceptance implies a choice however—what had been lurking, still lurked, in the tundra-dark of all the Margarets? He summoned all his own knowledge of the stubborner ones, his former wife, his last lover: what do the women do, these days, when they want, when they don’t want—? At the base of his spine, something plucked a guitar string and then was silent. They leave.
“—your language. I shall never have full control of it, of complications which, forgive me, I once regarded as unnecessary. But now it seems to me that if here long enough, one may grow the tongue for it—”
Yes, only some Ishi, hairy Ainu, last aborigine whom somebody has taught to prate square root; the complications are mine. Nothing that jukebox can say will ever approach the complex humanism of an empty stomach.
“—other apology. I had thought to find you—And instead, I find you—” A choke. A pause. “Now consider me that savage—the civilize’ being who think himself to be among savages.”
And Linhouse stood up again, ready to—shout? Smash? Run? Who could say. But he had the connection. “Yes,” said a voice in Holland Park. We are veree civilize’. ”
“—with thanks to this Center for providing opportunity. And for the marvelous facilities of Professor Van Wert Anders, without—as they say—whom—And now, as you like to say here, I will cut the cackle.” The top leaf of the book, all this time infinitesimally moving in an arc leftward, gave a last tweedle and lay over, giving way to the next one, which infinitesimally rose in its turn. “Herewith, my journal. Herewith … oh I am so proud … I.”
In the loge, a voice said something inaudible; then Anders’s head wobbled up on its long stalk. “Cut the … cut the …!” it said scratchily. “Cackle indeed!” It was a voice common enough to the professions here, a growing boy’s voice, testy as an old man’s. Ordinarily its timbre, that of a good square heel steadily treading eggshells, would have gone unnoticed. Now all heads in the auditorium turned to it, perhaps not for the reason its owner thought. “Nothing to do with this,” he said, “… miles out of my field … primitive peoples … not my beckyar-r-d.” From behind him there was somewhere a girl’s giggle, quickly quenched. It was true though: except for the har-r-d uptstate “r’s,” his voice was exactly—like the box.
“Anders—” Naughton the provost’s thick white shock of hair was trimmed to fall forward like that of certain bluff American business types, over a big face of healthy indoor red. And like them, he was very used to dealing with a republic of children, on whom the power, the money, the credit might nevertheless so often depend. “A while back, didn’t Security report some funny stuff down at your lab?”
“Oh, I’d forgotten that, sir. Why yes, looked as if somebody’d tried to run the works, and my notes were disturbed. No damage though. And I’ve no such apparatus as—as that.
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