49.

by mass-production; his capacity for injuring the psyche through personal contacts has expanded in an exact ratio to improved communication facilities. But these are all matters of common knowledge, and are not the things I wish to consider tonight Rather, I should like to dis- cuss what I choose to call autopsychomimesis-the self- generated anxiety complexes which on first scrutiny appear quite similar to classic patterns, but which actually represent radical dispersions of psychic energy. They are peculiar to our times... .**

He paused to dispose of his cigar and formulate his next words.

"Autopsychomimesis," he thought aloud, "a self- perpetuated imitation complex-almost an attention- getting affair. -A jazzman, for example, who acted hopped-up half the time, even though he had never used an addictive narcotic and only dimly remembered any- one who had-because all the stimulants and tranquilizers of today are quite benign. Like Quixote, he aspired after a legend when his music alone should have been sufficient outlet for his tensions.

"Or my Korean War Orphan, alive today by virtue of the Red Cross and UNICEF and foster parents whom he never met. He wanted a family so badly that be made one up. And what then?-He hated his imaginary father and be loved his imaginary mother quite dearly-for he was a highly intelligent boy, and he too longed after the half-true complexes of tradition. Why?

"Today, everyone is sophisticated enough to under- stand the time-honored patterns of psychic disturbance.

Today, many of the reasons for those disturbances have been removed-not as radically as my now-adult war orphan's, but with as remarkable an effect We are living in a neurotic past. -Again, why? Because our present times are geared to physical health, security and well- being. We have abolished hunger, though the backwoods orphan would still rather receive a package of food con- centrates from a human being who cares for him than to obtain a warm meal from an automat unit in the middle of the jungle.

"Physical welfare is now every man's right in excess.

The reaction to this has occurred in the area of mental health. Thanks to technology, the reasons for many of the

50 .

old social problems have passed, and along with them went many of the reasons for psychic distress. But be- tween the black of yesterday and the white of tomorrow is the great gray of today, filled with nostalgia and fear of the future, which cannot be expressed on a purely mate- rial plane, is now being represented by a willful seeking after historical anxiety-modes...."

The phone-box buzzed briefly. Render did not hear it over the Eighth.

"We are afraid of what we do not know," he continued, "and tomorrow is a very great unknown. My own special- ized area of psychiatry did not even exist thirty years ago.

Science is capable of advancing itself so rapidly now that there is a genuine public uneasiness-I might even say 'distress'-as to the logical outcome: the total mechaniza- tion of everything in the world. . . ."

He passed near the desk as the phone buzzed again.

He switched off his microphone and softened the Eighth.

"Hello?"

"Saint Moritz," she said.

"Davos," he replied firmly.

"Charlie, you are most exasperatingi"

"Jill, dear-so are you."

"Shall we discuss it tonight?"

"There is nothing to discussi"

"You'll pick me up at five, though?"

He hesitated, then:

"Yes, at five. How come the screen is blank?"

"I've had my hair fixed. I'm going to surprise you again."

He suppressed an idiot chuckle, said, "Pleasantly, I hope. Okay, see you then," waited for her "good-bye,"

and broke the connection.

He transpared the windows, turned off the light on his desk, and looked outside.

Gray again overhead, and many slow flakes of snow- wandering, not being blown about much-moving down- ward and then losing themselves in the tumult. . . .

He also saw, when he opened the window and leaned out, the place off to the left where Irizarry had left his next-to-last mark on the world.

He closed the window and listened to the rest of the symphony. It had been a week since he had gone blind-

51.

spuming with Eileen. Her appointment was for one o'clock,

He remembered her fingertips brushing over his face, like leaves, or the bodies of insects, learning his appear- ance in the ancient manner of the blind. The memory was not altogether pleasant. He wondered why.

Far below, a patch of hosed pavement was blank once again; under a thin, fresh shroud of white, it was slippery as glass. A building custodian hurried outside and spread salt on it, before someone slipped and hurt himself.

Sigmund was the myth of Fenria come alive. After Render had instructed Mrs. Hedges, "Show them in," the door had begun to open, was suddenly pushed wider, and a pair of smoky-yellow eyes stared in at him. The eyes were set in a strangely misshapen dog-skull.

Sigmund's was not a low canine brow, slanting up slightly from the muzzle; it was a high, shaggy cranium making the eyes appear even more deep-set than they actually were. Render shivered slightly at the size and aspect of that head. The muties he had seen had all been puppies. Sigmund was full-grown, and his gray-black fur had a tendency to bristle, which^nade him appear some- what larger than a normal specimen of the breed.

He stared in at Render in a very un-doglike way and made a growling noise which sounded too much like, "Hello, doctor," to have been an accident.

Render nodded and stood.

"Hello, Sigmund," he said. "Come in."

The dog turned his head, sniffing the air of the room- as though deciding whether or not to trust his ward within its confines. Then he returned his stare to Render, dipped his head in an affirmative, and shouldered the door open.

Perhaps the entire encounter had taken only one discon- certing second.

Eileen followed him, holding lightly to the double- leashed harness. The dog padded soundlessly across the thick rug-head low, as though he were stalking some- thing. His eyes never left Render's.

"So this is Sigmund . . . ? How are you, Eileen?"

"Fine. -Yes, he wanted very badly to come along, and I wanted you to meet him."

Render led her to a chair and seated her. She un-

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snapped the double guide from the dog's harness and placed it on the floor. Sigmimd sat down beside it and continued to stare at Render.

"How is everything at State Psych?"

"Same as always. -May I bum a cigarette, doctor? I forgot mine."

He placed it between her fingers, furnished a light.

She was wearing a dark blue suit and her glasses were flame blue. The silver spot on her forehead reflected the glow of his lighter; she continued to stare at that point in space after he had withdrawn his hand. Her shoulder- length hair appeared a trifle lighter than it had seemed on the night they met; today it was like a fresh-minted cop- per coin.