Dr. Grant looked silently at the figure upon the cot. The man had been lying down when they first reached the cell, but now he had risen to one elbow and seemed to be trying to shrink into the wall. His hair was sandy and thin, his figure slight, his eyes blank and china-blue. On his right cheek there was a raised pink patch that tailed off like a tadpole.
Dr. Grant said, “That’s Ralson.”
The guard opened the door and stepped inside, but Inspector Darrity sent him out again with a gesture. Ralson watched them mutely. He had drawn both feet up to the cot and was pushing backwards. His Adam’s apple bobbled as he swallowed.
Darrity said quietly, “Dr. Elwood Ralson?”
“What do you want?” The voice was a surprising baritone. “Would you come with us, please? We have some questions we would like to ask you.”
“No! Leave me alone!”
“Dr. Ralson,” said Grant, “I’ve been sent here to ask you to come back to work.”
Ralson looked at the scientist and there was a momentary glint of something other than fear in his eyes. He said, “Hello, Grant.” He got off his cot. “Listen, I’ve been trying to have them put me into a padded cell. Can’t you make them do that for me? You know me, Grant, I wouldn’t ask for something I didn’t feel was necessary. Help me. I can’t stand the hard walls. It makes me want to... bash--” He brought the flat of his palm thudding down against the hard, dull-gray concrete behind his cot.
Darrity looked thoughtful. He brought out his penknife and unbent the Reaming blade. Carefully, he scraped at his thumbnail, and said, “Would you like to see a doctor?”
But Ralson didn’t answer that. He followed the gleam of metal and his lips parted and grew wet. His breath became ragged and harsh.
He said, “Put that away!”
Darrity paused. “Put what away?”
“The knife. Don’t hold it in front of me. I can’t stand looking at it.”
Darrity said, “Why not?” He held it out. “Anything wrong with it? It’s a good knife.”
Ralson lunged. Darrity stepped back and his left hand came down on the other’s wrist. He lifted the knife high in the air. “What’s the matter, Ralson? What are you after?”
Grant cried a protest but Darrity waved him away.
Darrity said, “What do you want, Ralson?”
Ralson tried to reach upward, and bent under the other’s appalling grip. He gasped, “Give me the knife.”
“Why, Ralson? What do you want to do with it?”
“Please. I’ve got to--” He was pleading. “I’ve got to stop living.”
“You want to die?”
“No. But I must.”
Darrity shoved. Ralson flailed backward and tumbled into his cot, so that it squeaked noisily. Slowly, Darrity bent the blade of his penknife into its sheath and put it away. Ralson covered his face. His shoulders were shaking but otherwise he did not move.
There was the sound of shouting from the corridor, as the other prisoners reacted to the noise issuing from Ralson’s cell. The guard came hurrying down, yelling, “Quiet!” as he went.
Darrity looked up. “It’s all right, guard.”
He was wiping his hands upon a large white handkerchief. “I think we’ll get a doctor for him.”
Dr. Gottfried Blaustein was small and dark and spoke with a trace of an Austrian accent. He needed only a small goatee to be the layman’s caricature of a psychiatrist. But he was clean-shaven, and very carefully dressed. He watched Grant closely, assessing him, blocking in certain observations and deductions. He did this automatically, now, with everyone he met.
He said, “You give me a sort of picture. You describe a man of great talent, perhaps even genius. You tell me he has always been uncomfortable with people; that he has never fitted in with his laboratory environment, even though it was there that he met the greatest of success. Is there another environment to which he has fitted himself?”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is not given to all of us to be so fortunate as to find a congenial type of company at the place or in the field where we find it necessary to make a living. Often, one compensates by playing an instrument, or going hiking, or joining some club. In other words, one creates a new type of society, when not working, in which one can feel more at home. It need not have the slightest connection with what one’s ordinary occupation is. It is an escape, and not necessarily an unhealthy one.” He smiled and added, “Myself, I collect stamps. I am an active member of the American Society of Philatelists.”
Grant shook his head. “I don’t know what he did outside working hours. I doubt that he did anything like what you’ve mentioned.”
“Um-m-m. Well, that would be sad. Relaxation and enjoyment are wherever you find them; but you must find them somewhere, no?”
“Have you spoken to Dr. Ralson, yet?”
“About his problems? No.”
“Aren’t you going to?”
“Oh, yes. But he has been here only a week. One must give him a chance to recover. He was in a highly excited state when he first came here. It was almost a delirium. Let him rest and become accustomed to the new environment. I will question him, then.” “Will you be able to get him back to work?”
Blaustein smiled. “How should I know? I don’t even know what his sickness is.”
“Couldn’t you at least get rid of the worst of it; this suicidal obsession of his, and take care of the rest of the cure while he’s at work?”
“Perhaps. I couldn’t even venture an opinion so far without several interviews.”
“How long do you suppose it will all take?”
“In these matters, Dr. Grant, nobody can say.”
Grant brought his hands together in a sharp slap. “Do what seems best then. But this is more important than you know.”
“Perhaps. But you may be able to help me, Dr. Grant.”
“How?”
“Can you get me certain information which may be classified as top secret?”
“What kind of information?”
“I would like to know the suicide rate, since 1945, among nuclear scientists. Also, how many have left their jobs to go into other types of scientific work, or to leave science altogether.”
“Is this in connection with Ralson?”
“Don’t you think it might be an occupational disease, this terrible unhappiness of his?”
“Well--a good many have left their jobs, naturally.”
“Why naturally, Dr. Grant?”
“You must know how it is, Dr. Blaustein, The atmosphere in modern atomic research is one of great pressure and red tape. You work with the government; you work with military men. You can’t talk about your work; you have to be careful what you say. Naturally, if you get a chance at a job in a university, where you can fix your own hours, do your own work, write papers that don’t have to be submitted to the A.E.C., attend conventions that aren’t held behind locked doors, you take it.”
“And abandon your field of specialty forever.”
“There are always non-military applications. Of course, there was one man who did leave for another reason. He told me once he couldn’t sleep nights. He said he’d hear one hundred thousand screams coming from Hiroshima, when he put the lights out. The last I heard of him he was a clerk in a haberdashery.”
“And do you ever hear a few screams yourself?”
Grant nodded. “It isn’t a nice feeling to know that even a little of the responsibility of atomic destruction might be your own.”
“How did Ralson feel?”
“He never spoke of anything like that.”
“In other words, if he felt it, he never even had the safety-valve effect of letting off steam to the rest of you.”
“I guess he hadn’t.”
“Yet nuclear research must be done, no?”
“I’ll say.”
“What would you do, Dr. Grant, if you f
elt you had to do something that you couldn’t do.”
Grant shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Some people kill themselves.”
“You mean that’s what has Ralson down.”
“I don’t know. I do not know. I will speak to Dr. Ralson this evening. I can promise nothing, of course, but I will let you know whatever I can.”
Grant rose. “Thanks, Doctor. I’ll try to get the information you want.”
Elwood Ralson’s appearance had improved in the week he had been at Dr. Blaustein’s sanatorium. His face had filled out and some of the restlessness had gone out of him. He was tieless and beltless. His shoes were without laces.
Blaustein said, “How do you feel, Dr. Ralson?”
“Rested.”
“You have been treated well?”
“No complaints, Doctor.”
Blaustein’s hand fumbled for the letter-opener with which it was his habit to play during moments of abstraction, but his fingers met nothing. It had been put away, of course, with anything else possessing a sharp edge. There was nothing on his desk, now, but papers.
He said, “Sit down, Dr. Ralson. How do your symptoms progress?”
“You mean, do I have what you would call a suicidal impulse? Yes. It gets worse or better, depending on my thoughts, I think. But it’s always with me. There is nothing you can do to help.”
“Perhaps you are right. There are often things I cannot help. But I would like to know as much as I can about you. You are an important man--”
Ralson snorted.
“You do not consider that to be so?” asked Blaustein.
“No, I don’t. There are no important men, any more than there are important individual bacteria.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
“And yet it seems to me that behind your statement there must have been much thought. It would certainly be of the greatest interest to have you tell me some of this thought.”
For the first time, Ralson smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. His nostrils were white. He said, “It is amusing to watch you, Doctor. You go about your business so conscientiously. You must listen to me, mustn’t you, with just that air of phony interest and unctuous sympathy. I can tell you the most ridiculous things and still be sure of an audience, can’t I?”
“Don’t you think my interest can be real, even granted that it is professional, too?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not interested in discussing it.”
“Would you rather return to your room?”
“If you don’t mind. No!” His voice had suddenly suffused with fury as he stood up, then almost immediately sat down again. “Why shouldn’t I use you? I don’t like to talk to people. They’re stupid. They don’t see things. They stare at the obvious for hours and it means nothing to them. If I spoke to them, they wouldn’t understand; they’d lose patience; they’d laugh. Whereas you must listen. It’s your job. You can’t interrupt to tell me I’m mad, even though you may think so.”
“I’d be glad to listen to whatever you would like to tell me.”
Ralson drew a deep breath. “I’ve known something for a year now, that very few people know. Maybe it’s something no live person knows. Do you know that human cultural advances come in spurts? Over a space of two generations in a city containing thirty thousand free men, enough literary and artistic genius of the first rank arose to supply a nation of millions for a century under ordinary circumstances. I’m referring to the Athens of Pericles.
“There are other examples. There is the Florence of the Medicis, the England of Elizabeth, the Spain of the Cordovan Emirs. There was the spasm of social reformers among the Israelites of the Eighth and Seventh centuries before Christ. Do you know what I mean?”
Blaustein nodded. “I see that history is a subject that interests you.”
“Why not? I suppose there’s nothing that says I must restrict myself to nuclear cross-sections and wave mechanics.”
“Nothing at all. Please proceed.”
“At first, I thought I could learn more of the true inwardness of historical cycles by consulting a specialist. I had some conferences with a professional historian. A waste of time!”
“What was his name; this professional historian?”
“Does it matter?”
“Perhaps not, if you would rather consider it confidential. What did he tell you?”
“He said I was wrong; that history only appeared to go in spasms. He said that after closer studies the great civilizations of Egypt and Sumeria did not arise suddenly or out of nothing, but upon the basis of a long-developing sub-civilization that was already sophisticated in its arts. He said that Periclean Athens built upon a pre-Periclean Athens of lower accomplishments, without which the age of Pericles could not have been.
“I asked why was there not a post-Periclean Athens of higher accomplishments still, and he told me that Athens was ruined by a plague and by a long war with Sparta. I asked about other cultural spurts and each time it was a war that ended it, or, in some cases, even accompanied it. He was like all the rest. The truth was there; he had only to bend and pick it up; but he didn’t.”
Ralson stared at the floor, and said in a tired voice, “They come to me in the laboratory sometimes, Doctor. They say, ‘How the devil are we going to get rid of the such-and-such effect that is ruining all our measurements, Ralson?’ They show me the instruments and the wiring diagrams and I say, ‘It’s staring at you. Why don’t you do so-and-so? A child could tell you that.’ Then I walk away because I can’t endure the slow puzzling of their stupid faces. Later, they come to me and say, ‘It worked, Ralson. How did you figure it out?’ I can’t explain to them, Doctor; it would be like explaining that water is wet. And I couldn’t explain to the historian. And I can’t explain to you. It’s a waste of time.”
“Would you like to go back to your room?”
“Yes.”
Blaustein sat and wondered for many minutes after Ralson had been escorted out of his office. His fingers found their way automatically into the upper right drawer of his desk and lifted out the letter-opener. He twiddled it in his fingers.
Finally, he lifted the telephone and dialed the unlisted number he had been given.
He said, “This is Blaustein. There is a professional historian who was consulted by Dr. Ralson some time in the past, probably a bit over a year ago. I don’t know his name. I don’t even know if he was connected with a university. If you could find him, I would like to see him.”
Thaddeus Milton, Ph.D., blinked thoughtfully at Blaustein and brushed his hand through his iron-gray hair. He said, “They came to me and I said that I had indeed met this man. However, I have had very little connection with him. None, in fact, beyond a few conversations of a professional nature.”
“How did he come to you?”
“He wrote me a letter; why me, rather than someone else, I do not know. A series of articles written by myself had appeared in one of the semi-learned journals of semi-popular appeal about that time. It may have attracted his attention.”
“I see. With what general topic were the articles concerned?”
“They were a consideration of the validity of the cyclic approach to history. That is, whether one can really say that a particular civilization must follow laws of growth and decline in any matter analogous to those involving individuals.”
“I have read Toynbee, Dr. Milton.”
“Well, then, you know what I mean.”
Blaustein said, “And when Dr. Ralson consulted you, was it with reference to this cyclic approach to history?”
“U-m-m-m. In a way, I suppose. Of course, the man is not an historian and some of his notions about cultural trends are rather dramatic and.... what shall I say... tabloidish. Pardon me, Doctor, if I ask a question which may be improper. Is Dr. Ralson one of y
our patients?”
“Dr. Ralson is not well and is in my care. This, and all else we say here, is confidential, of course.”
“Quite. I understand that. However, your answer explains something to me. Some of his ideas almost verged on the irrational. He was always worried, it seemed to me, about the connection between what he called ‘cultural spurts’ and calamities of one sort or another. Now such connections have been noted frequently. The time of a nation’s greatest vitality may come at a time of great national insecurity. The Netherlands is a good case in point. Her great artists, statesmen, and explorers belong to the early Seventeenth Century at the time when she was locked in a death struggle with the greatest European power of the time, Spain. When at the point of destruction at home, she was building an empire in the Far East and had secured footholds on the northern coast of South America, the southern tip of Africa, and the Hudson Valley of North America. Her fleets fought England to a standstill. And then, once her political safety was assured, she declined.
“Well, as I say, that is not unusual. Groups, like individuals, will rise to strange heights in answer to a challenge, and vegetate in the absence of a challenge. Where Dr. Ralson left the paths of sanity, however, was in insisting that such a view amounted to confusing cause and effect. He declared that it was not times of war and danger that stimulated ‘cultural spurts’, but rather vice versa. He claimed that each time a group of men snowed too much vitality and ability, a war became necessary to destroy the possibility of their further development.”
“I see,” said Blaustein.
“I rather laughed at him, I am afraid. It may be that that was why he did not keep the last appointment we made. Just toward the end of that last conference he asked me, in the most intense fashion imaginable, whether I did not think it queer that such an improbable species as man was dominant on earth, when all he had in his favor was intelligence. There I laughed aloud. Perhaps I should not have, poor fellow.”
“It was a natural reaction,” said Blaustein, “but I must take no more of your time. You have been most helpful.”
They shook hands, and Thaddeus Milton took his leave.