“Yes.”
“What will happen when the Bright Spot comes?”
“Diane will become uncomfortable and move, if she is still there.”
“Once in one of the places I was in there was a man who was like that, and they said he wouldn’t get anything to eat if he didn’t get up and get it, they weren’t going to feed him with the nose tube anymore, and they didn’t, and he died. We told them about it and they wouldn’t do anything and he starved to death right there, and when he was dead they rolled him off onto a stretcher and changed the bed and put somebody else there.”
“I know, Nicholas. You told the doctors at St. John’s about all that, and it is in your file, but think: Well men have starved themselves—yes, to death—to protest what they felt were political injustices. Is it so surprising that your friend killed himself in the same way to protest what he felt as a psychic injustice?”
“He wasn’t my friend. Listen, did you really mean it when you said the treatment she was getting here would help Diane if she wanted to be helped?”
“No.”
Nicholas halted in midstride. “You didn’t mean it? You don’t think it’s true?”
“No. I doubt that anything will help her.”
“I don’t think you ought to lie to us.”
“Why not? If by chance you become well you will be released, and if you are released you will have to deal with your society, which will lie to you frequently. Here, where there are so few individuals, I must take the place of society. I have explained that.”
“Is that what you are?”
“Society’s surrogate? Of course. Who do you imagine built me? What else could I be?”
“The doctor.”
“You have had many doctors, and so has she. Not one of them has benefited you much.”
“I’m not sure you even want to help us.”
“Do you wish to see what Diane calls ‘the Point’?”
“I guess so.”
“Then you must walk. You will not see it standing here.”
Nicholas walked, thrusting aside leafy branches and dangling creepers wet with rain. The jungle smelled of the life of green thing; there were ants on the tree trunks, and dragonflies with hot, red bodies and wings as long as his hands. “Do you want to help us?” he asked after a time.
“My feelings toward you are ambivalent. But when you wish to be helped, I wish to help you.”
The ground sloped gently upward, and as it rose became somewhat more clear, the big trees a trifle farther apart, the underbrush spent in grass and fern. Occasionally there were stone outcrops to be climbed, and clearings open to the tumbling sky. Nicholas asked, “Who made this trail?”
“Ignacio. He comes here often.”
“He’s not afraid, then? Diane’s afraid.”
“Ignacio is afraid too, but he comes.”
“Diane says Ignacio is important.”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean by that? Is he important? More important than we are?”
“Do you remember that I told you I was the surrogate of society? What do you think society wants, Nicholas?”
“Everybody to do what it says.”
“You mean conformity. Yes, there must be conformity, but something else too—consciousness.”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Without consciousness, which you may call sensitivity if you are careful not to allow yourself to be confused by the term, there is no progress. A century ago, Nicholas, mankind was suffocating on Earth; now it is suffocating again. About half of the people who have contributed substantially to the advance of humanity have shown signs of emotional disturbance.”
“I told you, I don’t want to hear about it. I asked you an easy question—is Ignacio more important than Diane and me—and you won’t tell me. I’ve heard all this you’re saying. I’ve heard it fifty, maybe a hundred times from everybody, and it’s lies; it’s the regular thing, and you’ve got it written down on a card somewhere to read out when anybody asks. Those people you talk about that went crazy, they went crazy because while they were ‘advancing humanity,’ or whatever you call it, people kicked them out of their rooms because they couldn’t pay, and while they were getting thrown out you were making other people rich that had never done anything in their whole lives except think about how to get that way.”
“Sometimes it is hard, Nicholas, to determine before the fact—or even at the time—just who should be honored.”
“How do you know if you’ve never tried?” “You asked if Ignacio was more important than Diane or yourself. I can only say that Ignacio seems to me to hold a brighter promise of a full recovery coupled with a substantial contribution to human progress.”
“If he’s so good, why did he crack up?”
