'Never mind, Charles. I just hope I wasn't wrong to advise you to go into this in the first place.'
I laughed. 'How could that be? It worked, didn't it? Even Algernon is still smart.'
We sat there silently for a while and I knew what she was thinking about as she watched me toying with the chain of my rabbit's foot and my keys. I didn't want to think of that possibility any more than elderly people want to think of death. I knew that this was only the beginning. I knew what she meant about levels because I'd seen some of them already. The thought of leaving her behind made me sad.
I'm in love with Miss Kinnian.
PROGRESS REPORT 12
April 30 I've quit my job with Donnegan's Plastic Box Company. Mr. Donnegan insisted that it would be better for all concerned if I left. What did I do to make them hate me so?
The first I knew of it was when Mr. Donnegan showed me the petition. Eight hundred and forty names, everyone connected with the factory, except Fanny Girden.
Scanning the list quickly, I saw at once that hers was the only missing name. All the rest demanded that I be fired.
Joe Carp and Frank Reilly wouldn't talk to me about it. No one else would either, except Fanny. She was one of the few people I'd known who set her mind to something and believed it no matter what the rest of the world proved, said, or did—
and Fanny did not believe that I should have been fired. She had been against the petition on principle and despite the pressure and threats she'd held out.
'Which don't mean to say,' she remarked, 'that I don't think there's something mighty strange about you, Charlie. Them changes. I d°n l know. You used to be a good, dependable, ordinary man—not too bright maybe, but honest. Who knows what you done to yourself to get s° smart all of a sudden. Like everybody around here's been saying, Charlie, it's not right.'
'But how can you say that, Fanny? What's wrong with a man becoming intelligent and wanting to acquire knowledge and understanding of the world around him?'
She stared down at her work and I turned to leave. Without looking at me, she said: 'It was evil when Eve listened to the snake and ate from the tree of knowledge.
It was evil when she saw that she was naked. If not for that none of us would ever have to grow old and sick, and die.'
Once again now I have the feeling of shame burning inside me. This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I once knew and loved. Before, they laughed at me and despised me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding. What in God's name do they want of me?
They've driven me out of the factory. Now I'm more alone than ever before...
May 15 Dr. Strauss is very angry at me for not having written any progress reports in two weeks. He's justified because the lab is now paying me a regular salary.
I told him I was too busy thinking and reading. When I pointed out that writing was such a slow process that it made me impatient with my poor handwriting, he suggested that I learn to type. It's much easier to write now because I can type nearly seventy-five words a minute. Dr. Strauss continually reminds me of the need to speak and write simply so that people will be able to understand me.
I'll try to review all the things that happened to me during the last two weeks.
Algernon and I were presented to the American Psychological Association sitting in convention with the World Psychological Association last Tuesday. We created quite a sensation. Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss were proud of us.
I suspect that Dr. Nemur, who is sixty—ten years older than Dr. Strauss—finds it necessary to see tangible results of his work. Undoubtedly the result of pressure by Mrs. Nemur.
Contrary to my earlier impressions of him, I realize that Dr. Nemur !s not at all a genius. He has a very good mind, but it struggles under the spectre of self-doubt. He wants people to take him for a genius. Therefore, it is important for him to feel that his work is accepted by the world. I believe that Dr. Nemur was afraid of further delay because 'e worried that someone else might make a discovery along these lines
^d take the credit from him.
Dr. Strauss on the other hand might be called a genius, although I teel that his areas of knowledge are too limited. He was educated in the tradition of narrow specialization; the broader aspects of background were neglected far more than necessary—even for a neurosurgeon.
I was shocked to learn that the only ancient languages he could read were Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and that he knows almost nothing of mathematics beyond the elementary levels of the calculus of variations. When he admitted this to me, I found myself almost annoyed. It was as if he'd hidden this part of himself in order to deceive me, pretending —as do many people I've discovered—to be what he is not. No one I've ever known is what he appears to be on the surface.
Dr. Nemur appears to be uncomfortable around me. Sometimes when I try to talk to him, he just looks at me strangely and turns away. I was angry at first when Dr.
Strauss told me I was giving Dr. Nemur an inferiority complex. I thought he was mocking me and I'm oversensitive at being made fun of.
How was I to know that a highly respected psychoexperimentalist like Nemur was unacquainted with Hindustani and Chinese? It's absurd when you consider the work that is being done in India and China today in the very field of his study.
I asked Dr. Strauss how Nemur could refute Rahajamati's attack on his method and results if Nemur couldn't even read them in the first place. That strange look on Dr. Strauss' face can mean only one of two things. Either he doesn't want to tell Nemur what they're saying in India, or else—and this worries me—Dr. Strauss doesn't know either. I must be careful to speak and write clearly and simply so that people won't laugh.
May 18 I am very disturbed. I saw Miss Kinnian last night for the first time in over a week. I tried to avoid all discussions of intellectual concepts and to keep the conversation on a simple, everyday level, but she just stared at me blankly and asked me what I meant about the mathematical variance equivalent in Dorbermann's Fifth Concerto.
When I tried to explain she stopped me and laughed. I guess I got angry, but I suspect I'm approaching her on the wrong level. No matter what I try to discuss with her, I am unable to communicate. I began to review Vrostadt's equations on Levels of Semantic Progression. I find that I don't communicate with people much any more.
Thank God for books and music and things I can think about. I am alone in my apartment at Mrs. Flynn's boardinghouse most of the time and seldom speak to anyone.
May 20 I would not have noticed the new dishwasher, a boy of about sixteen, at the corner diner where I take my evening meals if not for the incident of the broken dishes.
They crashed to the floor, shattering and sending bits of white china under the tables. The boy stood there, dazed and frightened, holding the empty tray in his hand.
The whistles and catcalls from the customers (the cries of 'hey, there go the profits!' ... 'Mazeltov!'... and 'well, he didn't work here very long...' which invariably seem to follow the breaking of glass or dishware in a public restaurant) all seemed to confuse him.
When the owner came to see what the excitement was about, the boy cowered as if he expected to be struck and threw up his arms as if to ward off the blow.
'All right! All right, you dope,' shouted the owner, 'don't just stand there! Get the broom and sweep that mess up. A broom ... a broom, you idiot! It's in the kitchen.
Sweep up all the pieces.'
The boy saw that he was not going to be punished. His frightened expression disappeared and he smiled and hummed as he came back with the broom to sweep the floor. A few of the rowdier customers kept up the remarks, amusing themselves at his expense.
'Here, sonny, over here there's a nice piece behind you ...'
'C'mon, do it again ...'
'He's not so dumb. It's easier to break 'em than to wash 'em...'
As his vacant eyes moved across the crowd of amused onlookers, he slowly mirrored their smiles and finally broke into an uncertain grin at the joke which he obviously did not understand.
