“Don’t get mixed up in last year’s politics.” Maury put down his letters for a moment, sighing. “The other day it was my daughter; now it’s the Stanton. There’s always some dark horror lurking. You have the mind of an old maid, you know that? Lay off and let me work.”
I went back downstairs to the shop again. There, as before, sat the Stanton, but now it had finished its book; it sat pondering.
“Young man,” it called to me, “give me more information about this Barrows. Did you say he lives at our nation’s Capitol?”
“No sir, the state of Washington.” I explained where it was.
“And is it true, as Mr. Rock tells me, that this Barrows arranged for the World’s Fair to be held in that city through his great influence?”
“I’ve heard that. Of course, when a man is that rich and eccentric all sorts of legends crop up about him.”
“Is the fair still in progress?”
“No, that was years ago.”
“A pity,” the Stanton murmured. “I wanted to go.” That touched me to the heart. Again I reexperienced my first impression of it: that in many ways it was more human– god help usl–than we were, than Pris or Maury or even me, Louis Rosen. Only my father stood above it in dignity. Doctor Horstowski–another only partly-human creature, dwarfed by this electronic simulacrum. And, I thought, what about Barrows? How will he look when compared, face to face, with the Stanton?
And then I thought, How about the Lincoln? I wonder how that will make us feel and make us look.
“I’d like your opinion about Miss Frauenzimmer, sir,” I said to the simulacrum. “If you have the time to spare.”
“I have the time, Mr. Rosen.”
I seated myself on a truck tire opposite its brown easychair.
“I have known Miss Frauenzimmer for some time. I am not certain precisely how long, but no matter; we are wellacquainted. She has recently left the Kasanin Medical Clinic at Kansas City, Missouri, and returned here to her family. As a matter of fact I live at the Frauenzimmer home. She has light gray eyes and stands five feet six inches. Her weight is one-hundred-twenty pounds at this time. She has been losing weight, I am told. I cannot recall her as anything but beauteous. Now I shall dilate on deeper matters. Her stock is of the highest, although immigrant; for it has imbibed of the American vision, which is: that a person is only limited by his abilities and may rise to whatever station in life is bestsuited to those abilities. It does not follow from that however, that all men will rise equally; far from it. But Miss Frauenzimmer is quite right in refusing to accept any arrangement which denies her expression of those abilities and she senses any infringement with a flash of fire in her gray eyes.”
I said, “It sounds as if you’ve worked out your view thoroughly.”
“Sir, it is a topic deserving of some consideration; you yourself have erected it for our mutual inspection, have you not?” Its hard but wise eyes sparkled momentarily. “Miss Frauenzimmer is basically good, at heart. She will come through. There is in her just a bit of impatience, and she does have a temper. But sir, temper is the anvil of justice, on which the hard facts of reality must be smitten. Men without temper are like animals without life; it is the spark that turns a lump of fur, flesh, bones and fat into a breathing expression of the Creator.”
I had to admit that I was impressed by the Stanton’s harangue.
“What I am concerned with in Priscilla,” the Stanton continued, “is not her fire and spirit; far from that. When she trusts her heart she trusts correctly. But Priscilla does not always listen to the dictates of her heart. Sorry to say, sir, she often pays heed to the dictates of her head. And there the difficulty arises.”
“Ah,” I said.
“For the logic of a woman is not the logic of the philosopher. It is in fact a vitiated and pale shadow of the knowledge of the heart, and, as a shade rather than an entity, it is not a proper guide. Women, when they heed their mind and not their heart, fall readily into error, and this may all too easily be seen in Priscilla Frauenzimmer’s case. For when she hearkens there, a coldness falls over her.”
“Ah!” I interjected excitedly.
“Exactly.” The Stanton nodded and waggled its finger at me. “You, too, Mr. Rosen, have marked that shadow, that special coldness which emanates from Miss Frauenzimmer. And I see that it has troubled your soul, as well as mine. How she will deal with this in the future I do not know, but deal with it she must. For her Creator meant for her to come to terms with herself, and at present it is not in her to view with tolerance this part, this cold, impatient, abundantly reasonable–but alas–_calculating_ side of her character. For she has what many of us find in our own selves: a tendency to permit the insidious entrance of a meager and purblind philosophy into our everyday transactions, those we have with our fellows, our daily neighbors . . . and nothing is more dangerous than this puerile, ancient, venerated compendium of opinion, belief, prejudice, and the now-discarded sciences of the past–all of these cast-off rationalisms forming a sterile and truncated source for her deeds; whereas were she merely to bend, to listen, she would hear the individual and wholesome expression of her own heart, her own being.”
The Stanton ceased speaking. It had finished its little speech on the topic of Pris. Where had it gotten it? Made it up? Or had Maury stuck the speech there in the form of an instruction tape, ready to be used on an occasion of this kind? It certainly did not sound like Maury. Was Pris herself responsible? Was this some bitter, weird irony of hers, inserting in the mouth of this mechanical contraption this penetrating analysis of herself? _I had the feeling it was. It demonstrated the great schizophrenic process still active in her, this strange split_.
I couldn’t help comparing this to the sly, easy answers which Doctor Horstowski had given me.
“Thanks,” I said to the Stanton. “I have to admit I’m very impressed by your off-the-cuff remarks.”
“‘Off the cuff,’ “it echoed.
“Without preparation.”
“But this, sir, came from much preparation. For I have been gravely worried about Miss Frauenzimmer.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“And now, sir, I would be obliged if you would tell me about Mr. Barrows. I understand he has expressed an interest in me.”
“Maybe I can get you the _Look_ article. Actually I’ve never met him; I talked to his secretary recently, and I have a letter from him–”
“May I see the letter?”
“I’ll bring it around tomorrow.”
“Was it your impression, too, that Mr. Barrows is interested in me?” The Stanton eyed me intently.
“I–guess so.”
“You seem hesitant.”
“You ought to talk to him yourself.”
“Perhaps I will.” The Stanton reflected, scratching the side of its nose with its finger. “I will ask either Mr. Rock or Miss Frauenzimmer to convey me there and assist me in meeting tête-a-tête Mr. Barrows.” It nodded to itself, evidently having made its decision.
7
Now that the Stanton had decided to visit Sam K. Barrows it was obvious that only the question of time remained. Even I could see the inevitability of it.
And at the same time, the Abraham Lincoln simulacrum neared completion. Maury set the next weekend for the date of the first test of the totality of the components. All the hardware would be in the case, mounted and ready to function.
The Lincoln container, when Pris and Maury brought it into the office, flabbergasted me. Even in its inert stage, lacking its working parts, it was so lifelike as to seem ready at any moment to rise into its day’s activity. Pris and Maury, with Bob Bundy’s help, carried the long thing downstairs to the shop; I trailed along and watched while they laid it out on the workbench.
To Pris I said, “I have to hand it to you.”
Standing with her hands in her coat pockets, she somberly supervised. Her eyes seemed dark, deeper set; her skin was quite noticeably pale–she had on no make-up, and I guessed that she had been up all hours every night, finishing her task. It seemed to me, too, that she had lost weight; now she appeared actually thin. She wore a striped cotton t-shirt and blue jeans under her coat, and apparently she did not even need to wear a bra. She had on her low-heeled leather slippers and her hair had been tied back and held with a ribbon.
“Hi,” she murmured, rocking back and forth on her heels and biting her lip as she watched Bundy and Maury lower the Lincoln onto the bench.