Render glanced at the clock.

"What you choose to do about it from here is, of course,your own decision to make. I think you'd be wastingyour time to remain in analysis any longer. We are nowboth aware of the cause of your complaint. I cant takeyou by the hand and show you how to lead your life. Ican indicate, I can commiserate—but no more deep probing. Make an appointment as soon as you feel a need todiscuss your activities and relatff them to my diagnosis."

"I will," nodded Erikson, "and—damn that dream!It got to me. You can make them seem as vivid as wakinglife—more vivid. ... It may be a long while before I canforget it."

"I hope so.**

"Okay, doctor." He rose to his feet, extended a hand."Ill probably be back in a couple weeks. I'll give thissocializing a fair try." He grinned at the word he normally frowned upon. "In fact, I'll start now. May I buyyou a drink around the corner, downstairs?"

Render met the moist palm which seemed as weary of(he performance as a lead actor in too successful a play.He felt almost sorry as he said, "Thank you, but I have anengagement."

Render helped him on with his coat then, handed himhis hat and saw him to the door."Well, good night."-Good night"

As the door closed soundlessly behind him. Render re-crossed the dark Astrakhan to his mahogany fortress andflipped his cigarette into the southern hemisphere of aglobe ashtray. He leaned back in his chair, hands behindhis head, eyes closed.

"Of course it was more real than life," he informed noone in particular, "I shaped it."

Smiling, he reviewed the dream sequence step by step,wishing some of his former instructors could have witnessed it. It had been well-constructed and powerfullyexecuted, as well as being precisely appropriate for thecase at hand. But then, he was Render, the Shaper—one of the two hundred or so special analysts whose ownpsychic makeup permitted them to enter into neuroticpatterns without carrying away more than an estheticgratification from the mimesis of aberrance—a SaneHatter.

Render stirred his recollections. He had been analyzedhimself, analyzed and passed upon as a granite-willed,ultra-stable outsider—tough enough to weather the basiliskgaze of a fixation, walk unscathed amidst the chimaraeof perversions, force dark Mother Medusa to close hereyes before the caduceus of his art. His own analysis hadnot been difficult. Nine years before (it seemed muchlonger) he had suffered a willing injection of novocaininto the most painful area of bis spirit It was after theauto wreck, after the death of Ruth, and of Miranda, theirdaughter, that he had begun to feel detached. Perhaps hedid not want to recover certain empathies; perhaps hisown world was now based upon a certain rigidity of feeling. If this was true, he was wise enough in the waysof the mind to realize it, and perhaps he had decided thatsuch a world had its own compensations.

His son Peter was now ten years old. He was attending a school of quality, and he penned his father aletter every week. The letters were becoming progressivelyliterate, showing signs of a precociousness of which Render could not but approve. He would take the boy withhim to Europe in the summer.

As for Jill—Jill DeVille (what a luscious, ridiculousnamel—he loved her for it)—she was growing if anything, more interesting to him. (He wondered if this wasan indication of early middle age.) He was vastly takenby her unmusical nasal voice, her sudden interest in architecture, her concern with the unremovable mole on theright side of her otherwise well-designed nose. He shouldreally call her immediately and go in search of a newrestaurant For some reason though, he did not feel like it.

It had been several weeks since he had visited hisclub. The Partridge and Scalpel, and he felt a strong desire to eat from an oaken table, alone, in the split-leveldining room with the three fireplaces, beneath the artificial torches and the boars' heads like gin ads. So hepushed his perforated membership card into the phoneslot on his desk and there were two buzzes behind thevoice-screen.

"Hello, Partridge and ScalpeL" said the voice. "May Ihelp you?"

"Charles Render," he said. "I'd like a table in abouthalf an hour.*'

"How many will there be?**

"Just me."

"Very good, sir. Half an hour, then.—That's 'Render'?—R-e-n-d-er-?"

"Right."

*Thank you.'*

He broke the connection and rose from his desk. Outside, the day had vanished.

The monoliths and the towers gave forth their ownlight now. A soft snow, like sugar, was sifting downthrough the shadows and transforming itself into beadson the windowpane.

Render shrugged into his overcoat, turned off the lights,locked the inner office. There was a note on Mrs. Hedges'blotter.

Miss DeVille called, it said.

He crumpled the note and tossed it into the wastechute. He would call her tomorrow and say he had beenworking until late on his lecture.

He switched off the final light, clapped his hat ontohis head and passed through the outer door, locking it ashe went. The drop took him to the sub-subcellar wherehis auto was parked.

It was chilly in the sub-sub, and his footsteps seemedloud on the concrete as he passed among the parked vehicles. Beneath the glare of the naked lights, his S-7Spinner was a sleek gray cocoon from which it seemedturbulent wings might at any moment emerge. The doublerow of antennae which fanned forward from the slopeof its hood added to this feeling. Render thumbed openthe door.

He touched the ignition and there was the sound of alone bee awakening in a great hive. The door swungsoundlessly shut as he raised the steering wheel andlocked it into place. He spun up the spiral ramp and cameto a roiling stop before the big overhead.

As the door rattled upward he lighted his destinationscreen and turned the knob that shifted {he broadcastmap. —Left to right, top to bottom, section by section heshifted it, until he located the portion of Carnegie Avenue he desired. He punched out its coordinates andlowered the wheel. The car switched over to monitor andmoved out onto the highway marginal. Render lit acigarette.

Pushing his seat back into the centerspace, he left allthe windows transparent. It was pleasant to half-reclineand watch the oncoming cars drift past him like swarms offireflies. He pushed his hat back on his head and staredupward.

He could remember a time when he had loved snow,when it had reminded him of novels by Thomas Mannand music by Scandanavian composers. In his mindnow, though, there was another element from which itcould never be wholly dissociated. He could visualize soclearly the eddies of milk-white coldness that swirledabout his old manual-steer auto, flowing into its firecharred interior to rewhiten that which had been blackened; so clearly—as though he had walked toward itacross a chalky lakebottom—it, the sunken wreck, andhe, the diver—unable to open his mouth to speak, forfear of drowning; and he knew, whenever he looked uponfalling snow, that somewhere skulls were whitening. Butnine years had washed away much of the pain, and healso knew that the night was lovely.

He was sped along the wide, wide roads, shot acrosshigh bridges, their surfaces slick and gleaming beneathhis lights, was woven through frantic cloverieafs andplunged into a tunnel whose dimly glowing walls blurredby him like a mirage. Finally, he switched the windows toopaque and closed his eyes.

He could not remember whether he had dozed for amoment or not, which meant he probably had. He felt thecar slowing, and he moved the seat forward and turnedon the windows again. Almost simultaneously, the cut-offbuzzer sounded. He raised the steering wheel and pulledinto the parking dome, stepped out onto the ramp andleft the car to the parking unit, receiving his ticket fromthat bos-headed robot which took its solemn revenge onmankind by sticking forth a cardboard tongue at everyone it served.