'He is a chemical engineer,' said Mr. Gibson. 'Yes . . ,' (All of a sudden he saw Paul's laboratory like a vision before him and a row of bottles in a cupboard. The vision flickered and went away.)
'So he doesn't need Mrs. Pyne's money—if she has any,' said Rosemary. 'I just don't think he's mercenary.' 'Nor do I,' said Mr. Gibson, valiantly. Ethel said, 'Of course he isn't, as far as he knows. Lots of people never admit the most basic facts. However, almost everyone will do an awful lot for material advantage. . '. . Oh, we can kid ourselves, can't we, that it's for some fancy other reason. But whether you eat, whether you're comfortable, whether you feel secure, counts. Indeed it does. And all the time.'
'I suppose it does,' said Rosemary flushing. She bent over her handiwork. She seemed defeated.
Mr. Gibson found himself fearing what might be in her mind. Rosemary had come to him for material comfort, for security. . . Oh, she could not have helped herself— but she knew this now. And so did he. He had urged it. He had meant it to be so.
'Naturally it counts,' he said aloud gently. 'Quite naturally so. . . .' He turned a page.
Ethel said with a little snort, 'What do you think a baby yells for? He yells to be warm and fed, and that is all. Let me turn to the weather. I wonder if it will be hot tomorrow.'
Mr. Gibson thought to himself. To be warm. To be fed, for me to be comfortable. ... Is that what's in the iceberg? All of our iceber!B:s? Do none of us know why we do anything? Because we won't admit that we are animals? Ah, but what are we here for, then? Are we
compelled, always, and every time? In all this fluid busyness, has each of us his private doom?
He disliked the idea. He tried to face it. Ethel faced it. She was strong enough. He wouldn't hide from a fact either . . . not any more. Was it this fact that depressed him so? He seized upon it.
On the air they were talking about a bomb test, with pious hope that the terrible power would never be unleashed against fellow men.
Ethel listened and Ethel said, 'Of course they'll unleash it.'
'The bomb?' Rosemary was startled.
'Do you think they won't?' j
'I . . . hope they won't,' said Rosemary with wide | eyes.
Ethel shook her graying head. 'Be sure they will.'
'How can you . . . ?' Rosemary gasped.
'It's just a question of noticing,' said Ethel, 'that human beings are what they are. And believe me, a weapon in the hand is as good as thrown. Don't you know—in cold fact—that anything could cause it to fall? Human beings are so primitive . . . essentially. They don't mean to be. You can't call it their fault, but their nature. For which none of us are to blame. But they get angry; once angry, they begin to call the other side a monster. There seems no reason why it is not fine and honorable and brave and good to slaughter a monster. They do not wait and try to understand or to reason differences away. They simply do not. And even if they were to try—human reason is so pitifully new and such a minor factor. . . . People will always act from the blood and the animal residue.'
'How do you face a fact like that?' asked Mr. Gibson quietly.
'The bomb falling?' she said, misunderstanding. 'As far as I am concerned, I'll stay put and be blown up with the world I know. I don't even want to survive. Don't tell me you do!' She looked as if he could not possibly be so childish, could he?
'No,' said Mr. Gibson thoughtfully. 'No ... not especially. But then, I am old.''
Doom, he thought. Well, then, we are doomed. He wasn't thinking about the bomb.
'I don't see,' said Rosemary to Ethel, 'how you have the courage to think the way you do.'
'Courage,' said Ethel, 'is about the only useful trait. The best we can do is hang onto our nerves and try to understand.
What good is it to understand, thought Mr. Gibson, if we are doomed anyhow? 'Then all our pretty intellectual toys . . .' he said, seeing the words he had lived by go sliding into limbo.
' 'Toys' is good,' said Ethel appreciatively. 'Enjoy your poetry while you may. Ken. When or if anyone survives,' she shrugged, 'be sure there won't be much time for poetry. Now, it hasn't fallen yet,' she nodded as if to reassure them, 'and I'd like to live out my allotted time just as you would. We have a built-in wish to survive that operates, this side of catastrophe.' She smiled. 'So let us hope,' she said.
'You have no children,' said Rosemary in a low voice.
'Neither have you, and let us thank God,' said Ethel.
But Mr. Gibson thought, It is true. We are doomed. And the doom is in the iceberg, ' the undersea part of it. None of us have ever known why we do what we do. We only have the illusion of knowing, the illusion of choice. We are really at the mercy of dark things, unknown propulsions. We are blind dupes. That's what Ethel means by reality. Oh yes, and it is true. Mrs. Violette had to break the vase. Paul must marry someone. Rosemary must fall in love with Paul. And I made a fool of myself. But I had to. It wasn't my fault. My choices were all made by the genes I got from my mother. Ethel took more from Pa and so is different . . . but she is clearheaded, she at least can see.
My whole life has been an illusion. Everyone's life is an illusion. We are at the mercy of what's unknown and cannot be known either. One day we will blow it all up, knock the earth off its orbit, possibly, as surely as Rosemary will go to Paul, as I will send her. . . .
He sunk his head upon his breast, Paul, who was a widower, a chemist, a Catholic . . . Paul was doomed, too. Doomed to be happy and make Rosemary happy, for a little while, before the world blew up.
While he, Kenneth Gibson, woulci live with his sister and grow older . . . limp out fifteen or twenty years. Not so!
There was one rebellious act he could think of. Just
