From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [418]
All right, Warden said impatiently. But whats to keep two people from just building each other up indefinitely.
Well, his mind frowned, its a little hard to explain to a layman. Theoretically, there is nothing. But in practice it gets rather repetitious. It gets rather hard to keep on inventing new compliments. Eventually, you reach a saturation point beyond which you can do no more than repeat. Naturally, the other party gets suspicious, if not actually bored.
A pretty picture, he said. You leave me a very pretty picture. Okay, you’ve diagnosed the ailment, how about the cure?
You misunderstood, his mind said. The subject of this paper is the isolation of the virus. We are not attempting to lay out a course of treatment.
Well, thats fine, Warden said. Thats just fine. You prove to me that I’m dying from a disease, and then tell me its incurable.
Well, his mind said, the isolation of the virus opens several avenues of approach. We have a few ideas we’re working on—
Better, he said, to have let me died in blissful ignorance.
I thought you were a man who liked to know the facts? his mind said stiffly.
Facts, hell! How do you think I’m going to tell her the facts?
Thats your problem. Of course, it said, there is always the possibility that she already knows the facts.
Yes, he said, that just what I’m afraid of.
To date, his mind said, the only known path of recovery from the disease of love is to get married.
You mean, just let it wear itself out.
Thats it.
And walk on crutches the rest of your life.
Well, his mind said, at least you wont be dead.
Give me polio any time, he said.
Well, his mind said, I guess I’ll sign off now. If I find anything new I’ll let you know.
Well, thanks, he said. Well, thanks a lot.
He sat on in the chair alone, wondering if this was how a man felt whose doctor has just told him he has cancer, and waiting for mortgageforecloser Ross to come in.
He wondered if the man with cancer also would worry most of all about how to tell his wife?
Even whiskey had no medicinal value for this disease. Hadnt he just tried two days of it?—because he was afraid to go down to Mrs Kipfer’s for another shock treatment? That showed how far gone he was.
You’re nothing but a husk, Milt, he told himself, and took another drink. A dried up eaten out empty husk. Not so long ago he had at least been able to get temporary relief in a whorehouse. Now he could not even do that, because he was afraid of ruining his reputation with a fiasco.
Back in the old days, before the moral United States got a throttlehold on the literary world, they used to write quite a bit about fiascoes. It was quite a subject, then. Now, they did not write about them any more; either because fiascoes were less frequent, which he doubted; or else because they were considered more shameful, which he suspected. After all, you could not propagate the race with fiascoes; and today propagating the race was of the utmost importance, in Germany and in Russia and in the USA, because where the hell are we going to get the manpower for the next war, after this one’s done, unless we propagate the race?
Why dont you write a paper on that one? he told it. A lot of people would like the answer to that one.
But there wasnt any answer from the gallery.
In fact, when you thought about it, just about the only consolation for this disease was the fact that it was not a rare one. That you were not the only one who suffered from it.
Well, lets wait and see what litigationprolonger Ross has got