defects, and promise more health to humanity. For another thing, once food came out of the laboratory and then could come off the assembly line, there would be food, always, for the entire world-no more undernourishment, no more famines. I saw the goal was worthy. I have devoted myself to it ever since.’
‘I admire your humanitarianism,’ said Denise, who had long since tired of the subject, ‘but in the end, you may be manufacturing only fool’s gold.’
‘No, no, Dr. Marceau, you must take my word that anything can be done in this field. Consider what Bergius has accomplished in converting sawdust and wood shavings into carbohydrates of the sugar type, and Fischer, synthesizing proteins that provide full nourishment. Most of us tend to forget that synthetic elements already exist in natural food. What is ice cream? Is it natural? Is it picked in the field? Does it grow? It is the result of combining natural products with chemicals. Or baking powder. Is that grown from trees? Synthetics are employed, chemicals like monocalcium phosphate. Or, for that matter, what shall we say of baked bread-?’
He was going on and on, warming to his subject, but Denise was no longer listening. With her concentrated glare she tried to hold her husband, across the room, in check. He had ordered, and was now accepting, fresh drinks for Marta Norberg and himself. He was standing even closer to the bitch in heat, addressing her more confidentially, beguiling her with his heavy-handed wit, now touching her bare arm and laughing, obviously working at seducing her (had he not had recent practice in the technique?).
Denise only half heard Lindblom’s hymn to synthetics, and the word caught in her mind, and she wished that chemistry could produce synthetic men, with synthetic faithfulness and a love that did not revolt against becoming middle-aged, and synthetic sex as well, that was geared to one mate and one mate only.
‘-and so I am trying to reproduce, in the laboratory, the taste of meat, the nutritional content of meat, the resemblance of meat,’ Lindblom was saying. ‘At the same time, I am exploring new areas, algae strains-’
‘Fascinating,’ said Denise with firmness and finality.
Lindblom knew that Her Majesty had dismissed him, but he was not dismayed. He was flattered to have held her attention at all. He was relieved that he could report some success to Hammarlund after the dinner.
‘Some day,’ Denise went on, ‘under more propitious circumstances, in a more appropriate place, you must explain your concrete accomplishments and the problems that have prevented your going further. Right now-’
‘I would be honoured,’ Lindblom hastily interrupted, ‘to have you visit my laboratory in the grounds, show you about, let you see my work.’
‘Thank you, thank you very much. Our time, as you know, is not our own. We are in the hands of the Nobel Foundation. Count Jacobsson appears to have filled every hour of our stay. But as I said, some day in the future-’
‘You and your husband will be always welcome.’
‘Yes, my husband,’ said Denise, glancing towards the bar. ‘I fear I have neglected him. A tribute to your elocutionary powers, Dr. Lindblom, and the drama of your work. Now I had better see my husband. Thank you so much.’
Abruptly, she left Lindblom and strode across the living-room. Claude and Marta Norberg both had their glasses to their lips when she came between them.
‘I wondered where you were,’ she said to Claude viciously.
Claude’s social smile froze. ‘Miss Norberg was interested in spermatozoa-’
‘
Marta Norberg appeared not to have overheard her. She was searching off for someone in the room. ‘Well, I’ll leave you two together,’ she said formally. ‘Your charming husband, Dr. Marceau, made me entirely forget I was the hostess. I must circulate.’ And then to Claude she added, ‘It was divine. Now, remember, my dear, keep one frozen sperm for Norberg. I may need it one day, if I don’t find a man soon.’
Gracefully, she inclined her head, and slouching, long-striding, she was gone.
‘ “Keep one frozen sperm for Norberg,” ’ Denise mimicked. ‘The shameless bitch. I will wager this is the only time she has been vertical all year.’
Claude showed pain. ‘Denise, is this continuous vulgarity necessary? Miss Norberg is a decent, utterly captivating lady.’
‘Like someone else we know?’
He affected not to have heard her. ‘How was your Dr. Lindblom?’
‘A hotheaded Don Juan,’ she said savagely. ‘I had to fight to keep from being raped… Now get
‘What does that mean? Are you going to be difficult tonight?’
‘You may be sure of that,
All through the cocktail hour, Andrew Craig had been trying to catch Emily’s eye. Now, with his second double Scotch in hand, he succeeded. She turned her head in his direction, knowing that he was staring at her, and he made a movement of his head to invite her to join him, but she replied with a quick, helpless shrug.
He understood. Her circle had enlarged. Baron Stiernfeldt and his wife, Mrs. Lagersen, and Margherita Farelli were still there, although Dr. Carlo Farelli had disappeared. And to this group had been added, since the last time Craig had looked, the persons of Ragnar Hammarlund, Konrad Evang, and General Vasilkov and his wife. It was the largest circle in the room, and it irritated Craig that the men were being attentive to Emily. Inevitably, he thought. She was irresistible to the male. Wherever she shone, the moths would bat about the flame.
At last, he conceded to himself that she could not escape from the others. He was on his own. He wheeled slowly to take in the remaining occupants in the room. Leah was still involved with Saralee Garrett and another woman, Miss Svensson, the opera singer. Craig saw that Leah kept glancing at him worriedly, and this posed a minor threat, for she might make up her mind that he was lonely. A second threat, too, was gradually drawing nearer. The actress, Marta Norberg, appeared to be approaching him. For a time, she had been with Claude Marceau, but twice he had caught her studying him. She had left both Marceaus at the other end of the bar, and by a circuitous route, first briefly engaged with Dr. Lindblom in conversation, then exchanging a few words with the butler, Motta, and now, after looking in on Leah and her ladies, she would undoubtedly be headed for him. He was next. There could be worse fates, he knew.
As a younger man, watching Norberg’s unapproachable enlarged image on countless motion-picture screens, enchanted by her gifts behind the footlights, Craig had shared in common with millions of other males certain wish fantasies. The years had been kind to Norberg, he told himself now. She was ageless, and still a lithe symbol of all desired and unattainable. Yet through some perversity, now that he had an opportunity to converse with her on intimate terms, as an equal almost, he was reluctant to do so. He was in no mood for banter about the entertainment world. He was in no mood to listen to her glories. His mind was on Emily Stratman, only Emily, with an occasional bewilderment about Lilly.
He gulped down the last of the second drink, and suddenly felt stifled in the overheated room. He wondered where he might cool off, in isolation, free to sort out his thoughts. His gaze passed along the exits from the living- room, and held, finally, on the French doors near the indefatigable orchestra. One of the French doors was ajar. It was all the encouragement that Craig needed.
Giving his empty glass to Motta, and rejecting a refill, he walked to one French door, and, hoping that he was not being observed, edged through it and closed it behind him.
The cold night air, not so bitter as other evenings, braced him. For the eternity of a minute, he stood motionless on the flagstones, inhaling the night and peering up at the clear navy-blue sky with its infinity of miniature stars like erratic strands of gay Christmas-tree lights. After a while, he drew back into himself, and strolled around the veranda, romantically and dimly lighted by antique English coach lamps. He considered Emily, and then Leah, and then Lilly, in that order, and tried to relate them each separately to Miller’s Dam and Lucius Mack and Joliet College and
He had reached the low stone balustrade that partitioned the veranda from the gardens, and absently he looked below, at the bush clumps and intersecting paths, and the hothouses in the distance. That moment, he realized with surprise he was not alone. Two male figures, directly beneath him, were moving across the lawn from the veranda stairs to the nearest garden path.
By straining his eyes, he made them out at last. The bulkier one, progressing with fluid ease, was Carlo Farelli. The other, progressing in fits and starts, nervously, jumpily, was John Garrett.
Briefly, Craig speculated on what the two winners in physiology and medicine, who were comparative
