The Great Fog (16 page)

“Well,” Jones had remarked to himself as he had put the book down. “If that means anything, it means that, with quite a simple experiment, one should be able to do precisely what Mather said (and quite rightly) would alone let one have real anthropological knowledge, direct knowledge, of another person.”

He went on, with growing interest, to read the further instructions. They said that for the best or easiest results “the opposite number should be one's contrast”; if, for example, one was born under Jupiter with the sun in a neighboring “house,” then one should choose as one's colleague in the experiment someone whose natal star was Saturn, with more than a glance of the Moon, or perhaps of Mercury, in his influences.

“That certainly would seem to point out Mather. His dryness would be a perfect complement to my ebullience,” murmured Jones to himself, pencil in hand. “I'll try. Maybe the stars indicate our collusions as well as our collisions.” Whether they do or not, the fact remains that Mather did come when called. Jones opened with a really quite good “anthropological approach.”

“I've been thinking over what you said about insight into character.”

“You mean that if you are to be able to see into me I must be able to the same degree to see into you?”

“Yes, that's it, and, of course, you're right.”

Mather was not so desiccated that he was not a little suppled by wholehearted agreement.

“I'm glad you think so,” he conceded.

So, when Jones unmasked his request, he did not immediately refuse. Jones's way of putting it, too, was not unskillful.

“I've come across a psychophysical experimental method which aims at helping such insight. Of course, I'm not a psychologist, so I can't tell if there's anything in it. I thought perhaps you'd ‘vet' it for me.”

“A psychophysical method of insight—do you mean an eye exercise?” Mather was permitting himself only a very low percentage of curiosity in his question, but Jones took it as a request for more information. And once again he improved his position.

“Well, I gather it is practically nothing but a physical method—something which can be definitely tested.”

That certainly reassured Mather, who was one of the almost wholly physiological psychologists.

“Well, go ahead. Describe the method.”

Jones knew that this would be the turning point. He tried to preserve the favorable position he had won. But in a few minutes it was clear that he had lost heavily. He could only conclude rather feebly, “Let's try.”

And then, when he thought he had failed, there came that queer little hint of interest, if only nervous interest. Jones, like many florid optimistic men, was a diabetic and had been on insulin quite a while. Little upsets like this told on him more than he chose to own to himself. His nervousness was disguised—even to himself—rather than lessened by his outward cheerfulness. He began to feel his need of the routine shot. But if Mather was going to yield, he must be pushed now. Mather fidgeted, put his hand in his pocket, pulled it out empty, and then said, “Oh, very well, let's get it over and show there's nothing in it. After all, a great deal of science still consists in pricking the bubbles of superstition!” It was hardly a gracious offer to co-operate, but Jones was ready to take it.

“The first thing is what is called the heart-contact,” he said. “We have to sit as close as we can, directly opposite one another.”

He drew up two stools and sat down on one. Mather methodically settled himself on the other. This was the last time, he said to his not ill-tempered but conventionally respectable self, that he would humor Jones. Even if Jones had the ear of their silly old founder, if the rest of the faculty—which was sound enough—kept steadily at sound work, the college could build up a reputation which could make it independent.

Jones interrupted this not too friendly reflection with, “Would you please draw your stool as close as possible? The point is that we have to have the left breast as close as possible to the left breast. It's to get the two hearts opposite one another.”

“Two hearts that beat as one?” queried Mather crossly, but adjusting his position as asked.

Jones answered only, “Now, please draw over a little to the left”—he did so, too—“so that our faces are as much as possible face to face. And now we have to let each eye look into the eye it sees opposite it.”

This, thought Mather, is worse than a bore—it's really rather unpleasant. Still, it would soon be over.

That was, as far as he could remember, his last actual reflection for a considerable time. It wasn't that he ceased to notice things. Indeed, he perceived things perhaps more clearly now than ever before. Perhaps it was that he hadn't been so interested in anything, in a sort of vivid way, since he was a child. Perhaps that was the reason he'd ceased to be able to reflect, ceased to be the detached little man with the notebook.

Jones found exactly the same thing. Perhaps he noticed it a few seconds earlier than Mather did, since he wasn't delayed by having to get over an attack of irritation. Things had suddenly gone just as he wished, so his observations followed quite a simple route, and at a steady pace. First, he saw the bridge of his own nose reflected in Mather's eyes. It was like looking into a small, very clear, binocular camera—a sort of stereoscopic effect. He was just beginning to wonder why he had never tried this odd little experiment before, when he was disturbed by an awkward feeling—a physical feeling that he hadn't had since he'd fainted from a palpitation. His heart had begun to beat as if it were pushing itself out of his chest, and he had at the same time the sensation that this was in some way a “double event”—that Mather was suffering in the same way and that he, Jones, could directly share that unpleasantness as though it were his own. He tried to shift his attention back to his eyes and away from his chest. He was sufficiently successful, though the acute discomfort continued, to be largely distracted by what he saw.

A moment before he had been observing the bridge of his nose mirrored in the eyes which were staring into his. Now the same field of vision was before him—but not quite the same—the same details, but their order was changed. He saw his nose and, behind it, the mirror eyes—and in these what was he seeing? To clear away his confusion he lowered his focus. He saw quite clearly his own nose confronting him. He saw the broad bridge, almost a saddle, which he'd so often confronted when shaving. Squinting involuntarily, he caught sight of a high narrow bridge even closer to him. It stuck out so far and high that he could see the white, stretched skin that covered it.

Funny, he thought, I imagined I was much too farsighted to be able to focus on anything as close as that, or, for that matter, on that nose opposite.

Suddenly, he was overcome by vertigo. What was his actual position? outlook? orientation? There wasn't any doubt. It was only fear that was making him try to question it. A blast of sheer dread struck him like a line squall. Here was real nightmare. He'd never imagined a dream as simple as this could so stun him with panic. He
must
wake up. What roused him, however, was a laugh—not a very pleasant one—but he had to own that it wasn't sinister, only ugly, and so, in a way, reassuring. Where had he heard that queer neighing cackle? Of course, it was a rather clever but quite offensive parody of his own cheerful “ha, ha.”

The face close before him began to draw away. But the laughter went on; Jones could see as well as hear that now. The laughter was obviously coming from the face that was now drawn away sufficiently to be seen as a whole. There was no longer a shadow of a doubt under which to take shelter. He had to come out into the hard light of knowledge. He could see himself laughing, and that unpleasant neighing must be—if not the sound of his voice, at least what it sounded like—to whom? To Mather, of course! The mouth opposite him ceased to gape and bellow. It was about to form words. The accent of the voice was little more pleasant than its laughter.

“Well, we've done it.” Jones heard the remark, a mincing parody of his own (as he'd always thought) rather clearcut tenor. Yes, there sitting opposite him was—himself. Not quite himself, though. He knew himself, as far as appearances went, only through those daily mirror inspections when he shaved and brushed his hair. Now, of necessity, he saw himself the other way around, the right way around. It was depressing to notice the significant, if slight, differences that showed up. He had gotten used to making little compensatory disregardings of the familiar mirror presentation. For instance, he now saw that his features were not at all the symmetrical pattern he'd come to assume: one eye was distinctly lower than the other; his nose was clearly out of line; his mouth had a pouched fold on one corner and a tucked-in wrinkle in the other; the left ear stood out much further than the right. So that was the actual impression one gave. That was what one looked like when one stood outside oneself and, disembodied, looked with detachment at one's body.

The words “detachment” and “disembodied,” however, running rapidly through his mind, suddenly swung him around. Of course, he wasn't detached, disembodied. There was something worse than just seeing oneself from the outside, worse than having simply dragged one's moorings: there was the actual position from which one saw that one had drifted. There was the shock of what one had run into—of being right in someone else's body. The mouth was, naturally, dry from alarm. But was that the only reason why it tasted so unpleasantly strange and stale? The tongue obeyed him as he passed it around the “tacky” gums. But in its routine efforts to freshen things up it struck against something that caught and pinched it. What was that? Of course, it must be a large upper dental plate. What a horrid thing! Thank heaven, he had kept his own teeth—all but a little bridgework—“the bridge of sighs,” he called it jokingly to himself, for sometimes he could hear his breath whistle through it. But, of course, that was just what he hadn't done. He'd lost his own carefully tended body and was now shut up in this dilapidated makeshift. He swallowed with fear—fear of having to make an inventory that might disclose heaven-knew-what lapses, lesions, and disgusts. The swallow was not a success. Hell! had one to learn how someone else does everything? He began to cough. Swollen tonsils had given him that choke. Mather had evidently never taken proper care of his body. He began to sneeze. The nose was apparently as neglected as the throat. He snatched for a handkerchief. It was certainly in keeping with all the rest. But there was no choice.

Shaken by the sneezing, that confounded huge dental plate nearly flew out of his mouth. He was so disgustedly vexed that he almost let it slip out. He felt he wanted to stamp on it to express his revulsion. The thought that there was someone to protest against brought him to his outer senses again. Yes, there he was—his real self, sitting in front of him. He could no longer see his old body—dear, delightful, most precious of all objects—clearly, for it had retreated. The stool on which it was still seated was now pushed back still farther. Of course, he couldn't see as clearly as he was used to seeing. He remembered that Mather, like most pettifogging, hairsplitting, overaccurate persons, was nearsighted. His own body, it was clear, however, wasn't being pushed about yet. That was a relief. Mather—after that first explosion of startled humor—must have been even more stunned than he was by what had happened.

Well, he, Jones, must pull himself together—or, rather, this old rag bag Mather had left to him. He must hurry. For he suddenly realized that Mather must be told how to take care of the Jones body. He might, by some sudden, careless, foolish action, strain or break part of that body—clumsy little ass.

Jones got to his feet—but not very skillfully. As he discovered when he tried to bend it quickly, the left knee was stiff, indeed, quite arthritic, and judging by the feel, there were some quite savage corns on the right toes. But the body was lighter and he was nearer the floor when he stood up. Of course, Mather was a smaller man by some inches. He stepped over to where his own body was seated. It looked up at him with a queer, stiff twist of the neck.

“Shall I give you a hand up?” Jones-in-Mather asked Mather-in-Jones.

“No,” came that queer voice in reply. “It's a damned clumsy overgrown thing you've swapped on me. But I'd better learn to ride it myself.”

“Well, it's better than being cramped up as I am!”

“Don't make personal remarks,” the other one snapped. “This body seems pretty well out of condition.”

“You take care of it,” exclaimed Jones. “You're very careless, I'm finding out, about how to take care of a body. And that body you're in, just because it is a fine one, needs care.”

“Oh, damn you,” began Mather. Then they both broke into feeble laughter.

“Well,” Jones remarked finally, “we've got a double hold on each other, there's no doubt. We'd better each set about quietly finding out how to run these machines.”

They were silent for some time, as each returned to his internal inventory. While doing this Jones, though, watched Mather. He saw Mather move the Jones hand up to the Jones face and feel and pat it gingerly. Why should he do that? There was nothing to be ashamed of or disgusted at in that fine ruddy cheek. Suddenly the Jones voice addressed him: “You take care of that plate. You haven't got one. Don't you lose it.”

Jones felt he must retaliate for this insult, the gross insult of being told to take care—as though it were precious—of a contraption which was a disgusting injury to have stuffed in one's mouth. He was seized with a craving to spit the beastly thing out. Wiser second thoughts prevailed. He contended himself with retaliating: “You take care of that left eye. Those eyes see twice as far as yours do, but the left one needs care—don't go straining it.”