Pygmalion's Spectacles Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _A Martian Odyssey and Others_ published in 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.

  PYGMALION'S SPECTACLES

  "But what is reality?" asked the gnomelike man. He gestured at the tallbanks of buildings that loomed around Central Park, with their countlesswindows glowing like the cave fires of a city of Cro-Magnon people. "Allis dream, all is illusion; I am your vision as you are mine."

  Dan Burke, struggling for clarity of thought through the fumes ofliquor, stared without comprehension at the tiny figure of hiscompanion. He began to regret the impulse that had driven him to leavethe party to seek fresh air in the park, and to fall by chance into thecompany of this diminutive old madman. But he had needed escape; thiswas one party too many, and not even the presence of Claire with hertrim ankles could hold him there. He felt an angry desire to gohome--not to his hotel, but home to Chicago and to the comparative peaceof the Board of Trade. But he was leaving tomorrow anyway.

  "You drink," said the elfin, bearded face, "to make real a dream. Is itnot so? Either to dream that what you seek is yours, or else to dreamthat what you hate is conquered. You drink to escape reality, and theirony is that even reality is a dream."

  "Cracked!" thought Dan again.

  "Or so," concluded the other, "says the philosopher Berkeley."

  "Berkeley?" echoed Dan. His head was clearing; memories of a Sophomorecourse in Elementary Philosophy drifted back. "Bishop Berkeley, eh?"

  "You know him, then? The philosopher of Idealism--no?--the one whoargues that we do not see, feel, hear, taste the object, but that wehave only the sensation of seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting."

  "I--sort of recall it."

  "Hah! But sensations are _mental_ phenomena. They exist in our minds.How, then, do we know that the objects themselves do not exist only inour minds?" He waved again at the light-flecked buildings. "You do notsee that wall of masonry; you perceive only a _sensation_, a feeling ofsight. The rest you interpret."

  "You see the same thing," retorted Dan.

  "How do you know I do? Even if you knew that what I call red would notbe green could you see through my eyes--even if you knew that, how doyou know that I too am not a dream of yours?"

  Dan laughed. "Of course nobody _knows_ anything. You just get whatinformation you can through the windows of your five senses, and thenmake your guesses. When they're wrong, you pay the penalty." His mindwas clear now save for a mild headache. "Listen," he said suddenly. "Youcan argue a reality away to an illusion; that's easy. But if your friendBerkeley is right, why can't you take a dream and make it real? If itworks one way, it must work the other."

  The beard waggled; elf-bright eyes glittered queerly at him. "Allartists do that," said the old man softly. Dan felt that something morequivered on the verge of utterance.

  "That's an evasion," he grunted. "Anybody can tell the differencebetween a picture and the real thing, or between a movie and life."

  "But," whispered the other, "the realer the better, no? And if one couldmake a--a movie--_very_ real indeed, what would you say then?"

  "Nobody can, though."

  The eyes glittered strangely again. "I can!" he whispered. "I _did_!"

  "Did what?"

  "Made real a dream." The voice turned angry. "Fools! I bring it here tosell to Westman, the camera people, and what do they say? 'It isn'tclear. Only one person can use it at a time. It's too expensive.' Fools!Fools!"

  "Huh?"

  "Listen! I'm Albert Ludwig--_Professor_ Ludwig." As Dan was silent, hecontinued, "It means nothing to you, eh? But listen--a movie that givesone sight and sound. Suppose now I add taste, smell, even touch, if yourinterest is taken by the story. Suppose I make it so that you are in thestory, you speak to the shadows, and the shadows reply, and instead ofbeing on a screen, the story is all about you, and you are in it. Wouldthat be to make real a dream?"

  "How the devil could you do that?"

  "How? How? But simply! First my liquid positive, then my magicspectacles. I photograph the story in a liquid with light-sensitivechromates. I build up a complex solution--do you see? I add tastechemically and sound electrically. And when the story is recorded, thenI put the solution in my spectacle--my movie projector. I electrolyzethe solution, break it down; the older chromates go first, and out comesthe story, sight, sound, smell, taste--all!"

  "Touch?"

  "If your interest is taken, your mind supplies that." Eagerness creptinto his voice. "You will look at it, Mr.----?"

  "Burke," said Dan. "A swindle!" he thought. Then a spark of recklessnessglowed out of the vanishing fumes of alcohol. "Why not?" he grunted.

  He rose; Ludwig, standing, came scarcely to his shoulder. A queergnomelike old man, Dan thought as he followed him across the park andinto one of the scores of apartment hotels in the vicinity.

  In his room Ludwig fumbled in a bag, producing a device vaguelyreminiscent of a gas mask. There were goggles and a rubber mouthpiece;Dan examined it curiously, while the little bearded professor brandisheda bottle of watery liquid.

  "Here it is!" he gloated. "My liquid positive, the story. Hardphotography--infernally hard, therefore the simplest story. AUtopia--just two characters and you, the audience. Now, put thespectacles on. Put them on and tell me what fools the Westman peopleare!" He decanted some of the liquid into the mask, and trailed atwisted wire to a device on the table. "A rectifier," he explained. "Forthe electrolysis."

  "Must you use all the liquid?" asked Dan. "If you use part, do you seeonly part of the story? And which part?"

  "Every drop has all of it, but you must fill the eye-pieces." Then asDan slipped the device gingerly on, "So! Now what do you see?"

  "Not a damn' thing. Just the windows and the lights across the street."

  "Of course. But now I start the electrolysis. Now!"

  * * * * *

  There was a moment of chaos. The liquid before Dan's eyes cloudedsuddenly white, and formless sounds buzzed. He moved to tear the devicefrom his head, but emerging forms in the mistiness caught his interest.Giant things were writhing there.

  The scene steadied; the whiteness was dissipating like mist in summer.Unbelieving, still gripping the arms of that unseen chair, he wasstaring at a forest. But what a forest! Incredible, unearthly,beautiful! Smooth boles ascended inconceivably toward a brightening sky,trees bizarre as the forests of the Carboniferous age. Infinitelyoverhead swayed misty fronds, and the verdure showed brown and green inthe heights. And there were birds--at least, curiously lovely pipingsand twitterings were all about him though he saw no creatures--thinelfin whistlings like fairy bugles sounded softly.

  He sat frozen, entranced. A louder fragment of melody drifted down tohim, mounting in exquisite, ecstatic bursts, now clear as soundingmetal, now soft as remembered music. For a moment he forgot the chairwhose arms he gripped, the miserable hotel room invisibly about him, oldLudwig, his aching head. He imagined himself alone in the midst of thatlovely glade. "Eden!" he muttered, and the swelling music of unseenvoices answered.

  Some measure of reason returned. "Illusion!" he told himself. Cleveroptical devices, not reality. He groped for the chair's arm, found it,and clung to it; he scraped his feet and found again an inconsistency.To his eyes the ground was mossy verdure; to his touch it was merely athin hotel carpet.

  The elfin buglings sounded gently. A faint, deliciously sweet perfumebreathed against him; he glanced up to watch the ope
ning of a greatcrimson blossom on the nearest tree, and a tiny reddish sun edged intothe circle of sky above him. The fairy orchestra swelled louder in itslight, and the notes sent a thrill of wistfulness through him. Illusion?If it were, it made reality almost unbearable; he wanted to believe thatsomewhere--somewhere this side of dreams, there actually existed thisregion of loveliness. An outpost of Paradise? Perhaps.

  And then--far through the softening mists, he caught a movement that wasnot the swaying of verdure, a shimmer of silver more solid than mist.Something approached. He watched the figure as it moved, now visible,now hidden by trees; very soon