DREAMING IS A PRIVATE THING

by

Isaac Asimov

The more that we—as a civilization—surround ourselves with bulwarks against the harshness or discomfort of the natural world, the more we seem to crave the “canned” excitements of art and entertainment. With real physical dangers too few and far between to keep our glands stimulated, and real physical hungers too often satisfied too easily, we keep contriving more and surer ways to give ourselves the jolt in the arm that we must have, to stay aware of being alive.

Isaac Asimov, who has been writing science-fiction long enough to know whereof he speaks, here tells a story of the men who make the dreams …

“I wonder often what the vintners buy, One half so precious as the stuff they sell …”

* * * *

Jesse Weill looked up from his desk. His old spare body, his sharp high-bridge nose, deep-set shadowy eyes, and amazing shock of white hair had trademarked his appearance during the years that Dreams, Inc. had become world-famous.

He said, “Is the boy here already, Joe?”

Joe Dooley was short and heavyset. A cigar caressed his moist lower lip. He took it away for a moment and nodded. “His folks are with him. They’re all scared.”

“You’re sure this is not a false alarm, Joe? I haven’t got much time.” He looked at his watch. “Government business at two.”

“This is a sure thing, Mr. Weill.” Dooley’s face was a study in earnestness. His jowls quivered with persuasive intensity. “Like I told you, I picked him up playing some kind of basketball game in the schoolyard. You should’ve seen the kid. He stunk. When he had his hands on the ball, his own team ~ had to take it away, and fast, but just the same he had all the stance of a star player. Know what I mean? To me it was a giveaway. “

“Did you talk to him?”

“Well, sure. I stopped him at lunch. You know me.” Dooley gestured expansively with his cigar and caught the severed ash with his other hand. ” ‘Kid,’ I said—

“And he’s dream material?”

“I said, ‘Kid, I just came from Africa and-‘

“All right.” Weill held up the palm of his hand. “Your word I’ll always take. How you do it I don’t know, but when you say a boy is a potential dreamer, I’ll gamble. Bring him in.”

The youngster came in between his parents. Dooley pushed chairs forward, and Weill rose to shake hands. He smiled at the youngster in a way that turned the wrinkles of his face into benevolent creases.

“You’re Tommy Slutsky?”

Tommy nodded wordlessly. He was about ten and a little small for that. His dark hair was plastered down unconvincingly, and his face was unrealistically clean.

Weill said, “You’re a good boy?”

The boy’s mother smiled at once and patted Tommy’s head maternally (a gesture which did not soften the anxious expression on the youngster’s face). She said, “He’s always a very good boy.”

Weill let this dubious statement pass. “Tell me, Tommy,” he said, and held out a lollipop which was first hesitantly considered, then accepted. “Do you ever listen to dreamies?”

“Sometimes,” said Tommy in an uncertain treble.

Mr. Slutsky cleared his throat. He was broad-shouldered and thick-fingered, the type of laboring man that, every once in a while, to the confusion of eugenics, sired a dreamer. “We rented one or two for the boy. Real old ones.”

Weill nodded. He said, “Did you Re them, Tommy?”

“They were sort of silly.”

“You think up better ones for yourself, do you?”

The grin that spread over the ten-year-old features had the effect of taking away some of the unreality of the slicked hair and washed face.

Weill went on, gently: “Would you like to make up a dream for me?”

Tommy was instantly embarrassed. “I guess not.”

“It won’t be hard. It’s very easy … . Joe.”

Dooley moved a screen out of the way and rolled forward a dream recorder.

The youngster looked Owlishly at it. Weill lifted the helmet and brought it close to the boy. “Do you know what this is?”

Tommy shrank away. “No.”

“It’s a thinker. That’s what we call it because people think into it. You put it on your head and think anything you want.”

“Then what happens?”

“Nothing at all. It feels nice.”

“No,” said Tommy, “I guess I’d rather not.”

His mother bent hurriedly toward him. “It won’t hurt, Tommy. you do what the man says.” There was an unmistakable edge to her voice.

Tommy stiffened and looked as though he might cry, but he didn’t. Weill put the thinker on him.

He did it gently and slowly and let it remain there for some thirty seconds before speaking again, to let the boy assure himself it would do no harm, to let him get used to the insinuating touch of the fibrils against the sutures of his skull (penetrating the skin so finely as to be almost insensible), and finally to let him get used to the faint hum of the alternating field vortices.

Then he said, “Now would you think for us?”

“About what?” Only the boy’s nose and mouth showed.

“About anything you want. What’s the best thing you would like to do when school is out?”

The boy thought a moment and said, with rising, inflection, “Go on a stratojet?”

“Why not? Sure thing. You go on a jet. It’s taking off right now.”

He gestured lightly to Dooley, who threw the freezer into circuit.

Weill kept the boy only five minutes and then let him and his mother be escorted from the office by Dooley. Tommy looked bewildered but undamaged by the ordeal.

Weill said to the father, “Now, Mr. Slutsky, if your boy does well on this test, we’ll be glad to pay you five hundred dollars each year until he finishes high school. In that time all we’ll ask is that he spend an hour a week some afternoon at our special school.”

“Do I have to sign a paper?” Slutsky’s voice was a bit hoarse. “Certainly. This is business, Mr. Slutsky.”

“Well, I don’t know. Dreamers are hard to come by, I hear.”

“They are. They are. But your son, Mr. Slutsky, is not a dreamer yet. He might never be. Five hundred dollars a year is a gamble for us. It’s not a gamble for you. When he’s finished high school, it may turn out he’s not a dreamer, yet you’ve lost nothing. You’ve gained maybe four thousand dollars altogether. If he is a dreamer, he’ll make a nice living and you certainly haven’t lost then.”

“He’ll need special training, won’t he?”

“Oh, yes, most intensive. But we don’t have to worry about that till after he’s finished high school. Then, after two years with us, he’ll be developed. Rely on me, Mr. Slutsky.”

“Will you guarantee that special training?”

Weill, who had been shoving a paper across the desk at Slutsky and punching a pen wrong side to at him, put the pen down and chuckled. “Guarantee? No. How can we when we don’t know for sure yet if he’s a real talent? Still, the five hundred a year will stay yours.”

Slutsky pondered and shook his head. “I tell you straight out, Mr. Weill-after your man arranged to have us come here, I called Luster-Think. They said they’ll guarantee training.”

Weill sighed. “Mr. Slutsky, I don’t like to talk against a competitor. If they say they’ll guarantee training, they’ll do as they say, but they can’t make a boy a dreamer if he hasn’t got it in him, training or not. If they take a plain boy without the proper talent and put him through a development course, they’ll ruin him. A dreamer he won’t be, that I guarantee you. And a normal human being he won’t be, either. Don’t take the chance of doing it to your son.

“Now Dreams, Inc. will be perfectly honest with you. If he can be a dreamer, we’ll make him one. If not, we’ll give him back to you without having tampered with him and say, ‘Let him learn a trade.’ He’ll be better and healthier that way. I tell you, Mr. Slutsky-I have sons and daughters and grandchildren so I know what I say-I would not allow a child of mine to be pushed into dreaming if he’s not ready for it. Not for a million dollars.”

Slutsky wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and reached for the pen. “What does this say?”

“This is just an option. We pay you a hundred dollars in cash right now. No strings attached. We’ll study the boy’s reverie. If we feel it’s worth following up, we’ll call you in again and make the five-hundred-dollars-a-year deal. Leave yourself in my hands, Mr. Slutsky, and don’t worry. You won’t be sorry.”

Slutsky signed.

Weill passed the document through the file slot and handed an envelope to Slutsky.

Five minutes later, alone in the office, he placed the unfreezer over his own head and absorbed the boy’s reverie intently. It was a typically childish daydream. First Person was at the controls of the plane, which looked like a compound of illustrations out of the filmed thrillers that still circulated among those who lacked the time, desire, or money for dream cylinders.

When he removed the unfreezer, he found Dooley looking at him.

“Well, Mr. Weill, what, do you think?” said Dooley with an eager and proprietary air.

“Could be, Joe. Could be. He has the overtones, and for a ten-year old boy without a scrap of training it’s hopeful. When the plane went through a cloud, there was a distinct sensation of pillows. Also the smell of clean sheets, which was an amusing touch. We can go with him a ways, Joe.”

“Good.” Joe beamed happily at Weill’s approval.

“But I tell you, Joe, what we really need is to catch them still sooner. And why not? Someday, Joe, every child will be tested at birth. A difference in the brain there positively must be, and it should be found. Then we could separate the dreamers at the very beginning.”

“Hell, Mr. Weill,” said Dooley, looking hurt. “What would happen to my job then?”

Weill laughed. “No cause to worry yet, Joe. It won’t happen in our lifetimes. In mine, certainly not. We’ll be depending on good talent scouts like you for many years. You just watch the playgrounds and the streets”-Weill’s gnarled hand dropped to Dooley’s shoulder with a gentle approving pressure-“and find us a few more Hillarys and Janows, and Luster-Think won’t ever catch us . … Now get out. I want lunch, and then I’ll be ready for my two o’clock appointment. The government, Joe, the government. ” And he winked portentously.

Jesse Weill’s two o’clock appointment was with a young man, apple-cheeked, spectacled, sandy-haired, and glowing with the intensity of a man with a mission. He presented his credentials across Weill’s desk and revealed himself to be John J. Byrne, an agent of the Department of Arts and Sciences.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Byrne,” said Weill. “In what way can I be of service?”

“Are we private here?” asked the agent. He had an unexpected baritone.

“Quite private.”

“Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll ask you to absorb this.” Byrne produced a small and battered cylinder and held it out between thumb and forefinger.

Weill took it, hefted it, turned it this way and that, and said with a denture-revealing smile, “Not the produce of Dreams, Inc., Mr. Byrne. “

“I didn’t think it was,” said the agent. “I’d still like you to absorb it. I’d set the automatic cutoff for about a minute, though.”

“That’s all that can be endured?” Weill pulled the receiver to his desk and placed the cylinder in the unfreeze compartment. He removed it, polished either end of the cylinder with his handkerchief ‘ and tried again. “It doesn’t make good contact,” he said. “An amateurish job. “

He placed the cushioned unfreeze helmet over his skull and adjusted the temple contacts, then set the automatic cutoff. He leaned back and clasped his hands over his chest and began absorbing. ‘

His fingers grew rigid and clutched at his jacket. After the cutoff had brought absorption to an end, he removed the unfreezer and looked faintly angry. “A raw piece,” he said. “It’s lucky I’m an old man so that such things no longer bother me.”

Byrne said stiffly, “It’s not the worst we’ve found. And the fad is increasing. “

Weill shrugged. “Pornographic dreamies. It’s a logical development, I suppose.”

The government man said, “Logical or not, it represents a deadly danger for the moral fiber of the nation.”

“The moral fiber,” said Weill, “can take a lot of beating. Erotica of one form or another has been circulated all through history.”

“Not like this, sir. A direct mind-to-mind stimulation is much more effective than smoking-room stories or filthy pictures. Those must be filtered through the senses and lose some of their effect in that way.”

Weill could scarcely argue that point. He said, “What would you have me do?”

“Can you suggest a possible source for this cylinder?”

“Mr. Byrne, I’m not a policeman.”

“No, no, I’m not asking you to do our work for us. The Department is quite capable of conducting its own investigations. Can you help us, I mean, from your own specialized knowledge? You say your company did not put out that filth. Who did?”

“No reputable dream-distributor. I’m sure of that. It’s too cheaply made. “

“That could have been done on purpose.”

“And no professional dreamer originated it.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Weill? Couldn’t dreamers do this sort of thing for some small, illegitimate concern for money—or for fun?”

“They could, but not this particular one. No overtones. It’s two-dimensional. Of course, a thing like this doesn’t need overtones.”

“What do you mean-overtones?”

Weill laughed gently. “You are not a dreamie fan?”

Byrne tried not to look virtuous and did not entirely succeed. “I prefer music.”

“Well, that’s all right, too,” said Weill tolerantly, “but it makes it a little harder to explain overtones. Even people who absorb dreamies might not be able to explain if you asked them. Still, they’d know a dreamie was no good if the overtones were missing, even if they couldn’t tell you why. Look, when an experienced dreamer goes into reverie, he doesn’t think a story like in the old-fashioned television or book-films. It’s a series of little visions. Each one has several meanings. If you studied them carefully, you’d find maybe five or six. While absorbing them in the ordinary way, you would never notice, but careful study shows it. Believe me, my psychological staff puts in long hours on just that point. All the overtones, the different meanings, blend together into a mass of guided emotion. Without them, everything would be flat, tasteless.

“Now, this morning I tested a young boy. A ten-year-old with possibilities. A cloud to him isn’t just a cloud; it’s a pillow, too. Having the sensations of both, it was more than either. Of course, the boy’s very primitive. But when he’s through with his schooling, he’ll be trained and disciplined. He’ll be subjected to all sorts of sensations.

He’ll store up experience. He’ll study and analyze classic dreamies of the past. He’ll learn how to control and direct his thoughts, though mind you. I have always said that when a good dreamer improvises-

Weill halted abruptly, then proceeded in less impassioned tones, “I shouldn’t get excited. All I’m trying to bring out now is that every professional dreamer has his own type of overtones which he can’t mask. To an expert it’s like signing his name on the dreamie. And I, Mr. Byrne, know all the signatures. Now that piece of dirt you brought me has no overtones at all. It was done by an ordinary person. A little talent, maybe, but like you and me, he can’t think.”

Byrne reddened a trifle. “Not everyone can’t think, Mr. Weill, even,. if they don’t make dreamies.”

“Oh, tush,” and Weill wagged his hand in the air. “Don’t be angry with what an old man says. I don’t mean think as in reason, I mean think as in dream. We all can dream after a fashion, just like we all can run. But can you and I run a mile in under four minutes? You and I can talk, but are we Daniel Websters? Now when I think of a steak, I think of the word. Maybe I have a quick picture of a brown steak on a platter. Maybe you have a better pictorialization of it, and you can see the crisp fat and the onions and the baked potato. I don’t know. But a dreamer … he sees it and smells it and tastes it and everything about it, with the charcoal and the satisfied feeling in the stomach and the way the knife cuts through it, and a hundred other things all at once. Very sensual. Very sensual. You and I can’t do it.”

“Well, then,” said Byrne, “no professional dreamer has done this. That’s something, anyway.” He put the cylinder in his inner jacket pocket. “I hope we’ll have your full cooperation in squelching this sort of thing.”

“Positively, Mr. Byrne. With a whole heart.”

“I hope so.” Byrne spoke with a consciousness of power. “It’s not up to me, Mr. Weill, to say what will be done and what won’t be done, but this sort of thing—he tapped the cylinder he had brought will make it awfully tempting to impose a really strict censorship on dreamies. “

He rose. “Good day, Mr. Weill.”

“Good day, Mr. Byrne. I’ll hope always for the best.”

* * * *

Francis Belanger burst into Jesse Weill’s office in his usual steaming tizzy, his reddish hair disordered and his face aglow with worry and a mild perspiration. He was brought up sharply by the sight of Weill’s head cradled in the crook of his elbow and bent on the desk until only the glimmer of white hair was visible.

Belanger swallowed. “Boss?”

Weill’s head lifted. “It’s you, Frank?”

“What’s the matter, boss? Are you sick?”

“I’m old enough to be sick, but I’m on my feet. Staggering, but on my feet. A government man was here.”

“What did he want?”

“He threatens censorship. He brought a sample of what’s going around. Cheap dreamies for bottle parties.”

“God damn!” said Belanger feelingly.

“The only trouble is that morality makes for good campaign fodder. They’ll be hitting out everywhere. And to tell the truth, we’re vulnerable, Frank. “

“We are? Our stuff is clean. We play up adventure and romance.”

Weill thrust out his lower lip and wrinkled his forehead.

“Between us, Frank, we don’t have to make believe. Clean? It depends on how you look at it. It’s not for publication, maybe, but you know and I know that every dreamie has its Freudian connotations. You can’t deny it.”

“Sure, if you look for it. If you’re a psychiatrist-“

“If you’re an ordinary person, too. The ordinary observer doesn’t know it’s there, and maybe he couldn’t tell a phallic symbol from a mother image even if you pointed them out. Still, his subconscious knows. And it’s the connotations that make many a dreamie click.”

“All right, what’s the government going to do? Clean up the subconscious.

“It’s a problem. I don’t know what they’re going to do. What we have on our side, and what I’m mainly depending on, is the fact that the public loves its dreamies, and won’t give them up … . Meanwhile, what did you come in for? You want to see me about something, I suppose?”

Belanger tossed an object onto Weill’s desk and shoved his shirttail deeper into his trousers.

Weill broke open the glistening plastic cover and took out the enclosed cylinder. At one end was engraved in a too-fancy script in pastel blue: Along the Himalayan Trail. It bore the mark of Luster-Think.

“The Competitor’s Product.” Weill said it with capitals, and his lips twitched. “It hasn’t been published yet. Where did you get it, Frank?”

“Never mind. I just want you to absorb it.”

Weill sighed. “Today everyone wants me to absorb dreams. Frank, it’s not dirty?”

Belanger said testily, “It has your Freudian symbols. Narrow crevasses between the mountain peaks. I hope that won’t bother you.”

“I’m an old man. It stopped bothering me years ago, but that other thing was so poorly done it hurt. All right, let’s see what you’ve got here. “

Again the recorder. Again the unfreezer over his skull and at the temples. This time Weill rested back in his chair for fifteen minutes or more, while Francis Belanger went hurriedly through two cigarettes.

When Weill removed the headpiece and blinked dream out of his eyes, Belanger said, “Well, what’s your reaction, boss?”

Weill corrugated his forehead. “It’s not for me. It was repetitious. With competition like this, Dreams, Inc. doesn’t have to worry yet.” ~ “That’s your mistake, boss. Luster-Think’s going to win with stuff like this. We’ve got to do something.”

“Now, Frank—

“No, you listen. This is the coming thing.”

“This?” Weill stared with half-humorous dubiety at the cylinder. “It’s amateurish. It’s repetitious. Its overtones are very unsubtle. The snow had a distinct lemon sherbet taste. Who tastes lemon sherbet in snow these days, Frank? In the old days, yes. Twenty years ago, maybe. When Lyman Harrison first made his Snow Symphonies for sale down South, it was a big thing. Sherbet and candy-striped mountaintops and sliding down chocolate-covered cliffs. It’s slapstick, Frank. These days it doesn’t go.”

“Because,” said Belanger, “you’re not up with the times, boss. I’ve got to talk to you straight. When you started the dreamie business, when you bought up the basic patents and began putting them out, dreamies were luxury stuff. The market was small and individual. You could afford to turn out specialized dreamies and sell them to people at high prices.”

“I know,” said Weill, “and we’ve kept that up. But also we’ve opened a rental business for the masses.”

“Yes, we have, and it’s not enough. Our dreamies have subtlety, yes. They can be used over and over again. The tenth time you’re still finding new things, still getting new enjoyment. But how many people are connoisseurs? And another thing. Our stuff is strongly individualized. They’re First Person.

“Well?”

“Well, Luster-Think is opening dream palaces. They’ve opened one with three hundred booths in Nashville. You walk in, take your seat, put on your unfreezer, and get your dream. Everyone in the audience gets the same one.”

“I’ve heard of it, Frank, and it’s been done before. It didn’t work the first time, and it won’t work now. You want to know why it won’t work? Because in the first place, dreaming is a private thing. Do you like your neighbor to know what you’re dreaming? In the second place, in a dream palace the dreams have to start on schedule, don’t they? So the dreamer has to dream not when he wants to but when some palace manager says he should. Finally, a dream one person likes, another person doesn’t like. In those three hundred booths, I guarantee you, a hundred and fifty people are dissatisfied. And if they’re dissatisfied, they won’t come back.”

Slowly Belanger rolled up his sleeves and opened his collar. “Boss,” he said, “you’re talking through your hat. What’s the use of proving they won’t work? They are working. The word came through today that Luster-Think is breaking ground for a thousand-booth palace in St. Louis. People can get used to public dreaming if everyone else in the same room is having the same dream. And they can adjust themselves to having it at a given time, as long as it’s cheap and convenient.

“Damn it, boss, it’s a social affair. A boy and a girl go to a dream palace and absorb some cheap romantic thing with stereotyped overtones and commonplace situations, but still they come out with stars sprinkling their hair. They’ve had the same dream together. They’ve gone through identical sloppy emotions. They’re in tune, boss. You bet they go back to the dream palace, and all their friends go, too.”

“And if they don’t like the dream?”

“That’s the point. That’s the nub of the whole thing. They’re bound to like it. If you prepare Hillary specials with wheels within wheels within wheels, with surprise twists on the third-level undertones, with clever shifts of significance, and all the other things we’re so proud of, why, naturally, it won’t appeal to everyone. Specialized dreamies are for specialized tastes. But Luster-Think is turning out simple jobs in Third Person so both sexes can be hit at once. Like what you’ve just absorbed. Simple, repetitious, commonplace. They’re aiming at the lowest common denominator. No one will love it, maybe, but no one will hate it.”

Weill sat silent for a long time, and Belanger watched him. Then Weill said, “Frank, I started on quality, and I’m staying there. Maybe you’re right. Maybe dream palaces are the coming thing. If so, we’ll open them, but we’ll use good stuff. Maybe Luster-Think underestimates ordinary people. Let’s go slowly and not panic. I have based all my policies on the theory that there’s always a market for quality. Sometimes, my boy, it would surprise you how big a market.”

“Boss-“

The sounding of the intercom interrupted Belanger.

“What is it, Ruth?” said Weill.

The voice of his secretary said, “It’s Mr. Hillary, sir. He wants to see you right away. He says it’s important. “

“Hillary?” Weill’s voice registered shock. Then, “Wait five minutes, Ruth, then send him in.”

Weill turned to Belanger. “Today, Frank, is definitely not one of my good days. A dreamer should be at home with his thinker. And Hillary’s our best dreamer, so he especially should be at home. What do you suppose is wrong with him?”

Belanger, still brooding over Luster-Think and dream palaces, said shortly, “Call him in and find out.”

“In one minute. Tell me, how was his last dream? I haven’t absorbed the one that came in last week.”

Belanger came down to earth. He wrinkled his nose. “Not so good. “

“Why not?”

“It was ragged. Too jumpy. I don’t mind sharp transitions for the liveliness, you know, but there’s got to be some connection, even if only on a deep level.”

“Is it a total loss?”

“No Hillary dream is a total loss. It took a lot of editing, though. We cut it down quite a bit and spliced in some odd pieces he’d sent us now and then. You know, detached scenes. It’s still not Grade A, but it will pass.”

“You told him about this, Frank?”

“Think I’m crazy, boss? Think I’m going to say a harsh word to a dreamer?”

And at that point the door opened and Weill’s comely young secretary smiled Sherman Hillary into the office.

* * * *

Sherman Hillary, at, the age of thirty-one, could have been recognized as a dreamer by anyone. His eyes, though unspectacled, had nevertheless the misty look of one who either needs glasses or who rarely focuses on anything mundane. He was of average height but underweight, with black hair that needed cutting, a narrow chin, a pale skin, and a troubled look.

He muttered, “Hello, Mr. Weill,” and half-nodded in hangdog fashion in the direction of Belanger.

Weill said heartily, “Sherman, my boy, you look fine. What’s the matter? A dream is cooking only so-so at home? You’re worried about it? Sit down, sit down.”

The dreamer did, sitting at the edge of the chair and holding his thighs stiffly together as though to be ready for instant obedience to a possible order to stand up once more.

He said, “I’ve come to tell you, Mr. Weill, I’m quitting.”

“Quitting?”

“I don’t want to dream anymore, Mr. Weill.”

Weill’s old face looked older now than at any other time during the day. “Why, Sherman?”

The dreamer’s lips twisted. He blurted out, “Because I’m not living, Mr. Weill. Everything passes me by, It wasn’t so bad at first. It was even relaxing. I’d dream evenings, weekends when I felt like it, or any other time. And when I didn’t feel like it, I wouldn’t. But now, Mr. Weill, I’m an old pro. You tell me I’m one of the best in the business and the industry looks to me to think up new subtleties and new changes on the old reliables like the flying reveries and the worm-turning skits.”

Weill said, “And is anyone better than you, Sherman? Your little sequence on leading an orchestra is selling steadily after ten years.”

“All right, Mr. Weill, I’ve done my part. It’s gotten so I don’t go out anymore. I neglect my wife. My little girl doesn’t know me. Last week we went to a dinner party Sarab made me and I don’t remember a bit of it. Sarah says I was sitting on the couch all evening just staring at nothing and humming. She said everyone kept looking at me. She cried all night. I’m tired of things like that, Mr. Weill. I want to be a normal person and live in this world. I promised her I’d quit, and I will, so it’s good-bye, Mr. Weill.” Hillary stood up and held out his hand awkwardly.

Weill waved it gently away. “If you want to quit, Sherman, it’s all right. But do an old man a favor and let me explain something to you. “

“I’m not going to change my mind,” said Hillary.

“I’m not going to try to make you. I just want to explain something. I’m an old man, and even before you were born I was in this business, so I like to talk about it. Humor me, Sherman? Please?”

Hillary sat down. His teeth clamped down on his lower lip, and he stared sullenly at his fingernails.

Weill said, “Do you know what a dreamer is, Sherman? Do you know what he means to ordinary people? Do you know what it is to be like me, like Frank Belanger, like your wife Sarah? To have crippled minds that can’t imagine, that can’t build up thoughts? People like myself, ordinary people, would like to escape just once in a while this life of ours. We can’t. We need help.

“In olden times it was books, plays, movies, radio, television. They gave us make-believe, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that for a little while our own imaginations were stimulated. We could think of handsome lovers and beautiful princesses. We could be attractive, witty, strong, capable-everything we weren’t.

“But always the passing of the dream from dreamer to absorber was not perfect. It had to be translated into words in one way or another. The best dreamer in the world might not be able to get any of it into words. And the best writer in the world could put only the smallest part of his dream into words. You understand?

“But now, with dream-recording, any man can dream. You, Sherman, and a handful of men like you supply those dreams directly and exactly. It’s straight from your head into ours, full strength. You dream for a hundred million people every time you dream. You dream a hundred million dreams at once. This is a great thing, my boy. You give all those people a glimpse of something they could not have by themselves. “

Hillary mumbled, “I’ve done my share.” He rose desperately to his feet. “I’m through. I don’t care what you say. And if you want to sue me for breaking our contract, go ahead and sue. I don’t care.”

Weill stood up, too. “Would I sue you? … Ruth—he spoke into the intercom-” bring in our copy of Mr. Hillary’s contract.”

He waited. So did Hillary and Belanger. Weill smiled faintly, and his yellowed fingers drummed softly on his desk.

His secretary brought in the contract. Weill took it, showed its face to Hillary, and said, “Sherman, my boy, unless you want to be with me, it’s not right you should stay.”

Then before Belanger could make more than the beginning of a horrified gesture to stop him, he tore the contract into four pieces and tossed them down the waste chute. “That’s all.”

Hillary’s hand shot out to seize Weill’s. “Thanks, Mr. Weill,” he said earnestly, his voice husky. “You’ve always treated me very well, and I’m grateful. I’m sorry it had to be like this.”

“It’s all right, my boy. It’s all right.”

Half in tears, still muttering thanks, Sherman Hillary left.

* * * *

“For the love of Pete, boss, why did you let him go?” demanded Belanger. “Don’t you see the game? He’ll be going straight to Luster-Think. They’ve bought him off.”

Weill raised his hand. “You’re wrong. You’re quite wrong. I know the boy, and this would not be his style. Besides,” he added dryly, “Ruth is a good secretary, and she knows what to bring me when I ask for a dreamer’s contract. The real contract is still in the safe, believe me.

“Meanwhile, a fine day I’ve had. I had to argue with a father to give me a chance at new talent, with a government man to avoid censorship, with you to keep from adopting fatal policies, and now with my best dreamer to keep him from leaving. The father I probably won out over. The government man and you, I don’t know. Maybe- yes, maybe no. But about Sherman Hillary, at least, there is no question. The dreamer will be back.”

“How do you know?”

Weill smiled at Belanger and crinkled his cheeks into a network of fine lines. “Frank, my boy, you know how to edit dreamies so you think you know all the tools and machines of the trade. But let me tell you something. The most important tool in the dreamie business is the dreamer himself. He is the one you have to understand most of all, and I understand them.

“Listen. When I was a youngster-there were no dreamies then-I knew a fellow who wrote television scripts. He would complain to me bitterly that when someone met him for the first time and found out who he was, they would say: Where do you get those crazy ideas!

“They honestly didn’t know. To them it was an impossibility to even think of one of them. So what could my friend say? He used to talk to me about it and tell me: ‘Could I say, “I don’t know”? When I go to bed, I can’t sleep for ideas dancing in my head. When I shave, I cut myself; when I talk, I lose track of what I’m saying; when I drive, I take my life in my hands. And always because ideas, situations, dialogues are spinning and twisting in my mind. I can’t tell you where I get my ideas. Can you tell me, maybe, your trick of not getting ideas, so 1, too, can have a little peace?

“You see, Frank, how it is. You can stop work here anytime. So can I. This is our job, not our life. But not Sherman Hillary. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he’ll dream. While he lives, he must think; while he thinks, he must dream. We don’t hold him prisoner; our contract isn’t an iron wall for him. His own skull is his prisoner. He’ll be back. What can he do?”

Belanger shrugged. “If what you say is right, I’m sort of sorry for the guy.”

Weill nodded sadly. “I’m sorry for all of them. Through the years I’ve found out one thing. It’s their business: making people happy. Other people.”