Once inside they came briefly under his charge; he set them in order, saw that they did not press ahead of their turn, and adjusted the television set for their amusement. A Higher Official interviewed them, checked their papers and arranged for the confiscation of their property. Miles never passed the door through which they were finally one by one conducted. A faint whiff of cyanide sometimes gave a hint of the mysteries beyond. Meanwhile he swept the waiting room, emptied the wastepaper basket and brewed tea—a worker’s job, for which the refinements of Mountjoy proved a too rich apprenticeship.

In his hostel the same reproductions of Léger and Picasso as had haunted his childhood still stared down on him. At the cinema, to which he could afford, at the best, a weekly visit, the same films as he had seen free at Orphanage, Air Force station and prison, flickered and drawled before him. He was a child of Welfare, strictly schooled to a life of boredom, but he had known better than this. He had known the tranquil melancholy of the gardens at Mountjoy. He had known ecstasy when the Air Force Training School had whirled to the stars in a typhoon of flame. And as he moved sluggishly between Dome and hostel there rang in his ears the words of the old lag: “You didn’t give enough trouble.”

Then one day, in the least expected quarter, in his own drab department, hope appeared.

Miles later remembered every detail of that morning. It had started in the normal way; rather below normal indeed, for they were reopening after a week’s enforced idleness. There had been a strike among the coal-miners and Euthanasia had been at a standstill. Now the necessary capitulations had been signed, the ovens glowed again, and the queue at the patients’ entrance stretched halfway round the Dome. Dr. Beamish squinted at the waiting crowd through the periscope and said with some satisfaction: “It will take months to catch up on the waiting list now. We shall have to start making a charge for the service. It’s the only way to keep down the demand.”

“The Ministry will never agree to that, surely, sir?”

“Damned sentimentalists. My father and mother hanged themselves in their own backyard with their own clothesline. Now no one will lift a finger to help himself. There’s something wrong in the system, Plastic. There are still rivers to drown in, trains—every now and then—to put your head under; gas-fires in some of the huts. The country is full of the natural resources of death, but everyone has to come to us.”

It was not often he spoke so frankly before his subordinates. He had overspent during the week’s holiday, drunk too much at his hostel with other unemployed colleagues. Always after a strike the senior officials returned to work in low spirits.

“Shall I let the first batch in, sir?”

“Not for the moment,” said Dr. Beamish. “There’s a priority case to see first, sent over with a pink chit from Drama. She’s in the private waiting room now. Fetch her in.”

Miles went to the room reserved for patients of importance. All one wall was of glass. Pressed to it a girl was standing, turned away from him, looking out at the glum queue below. Miles stood, the light in his eyes, conscious only of a shadow which stirred at the sound of the latch and turned, still a shadow merely but of exquisite grace, to meet him. He stood at the door, momentarily struck silent at this blind glance of beauty. Then he said: “We’re quite ready for you now, miss.”

The girl came nearer. Miles’s eyes adjusted themselves to the light. The shadow took form. The full vision was all that the first glance had hinted; more than all, for every slight movement revealed perfection. One feature only broke the canon of pure beauty; a long, silken, corn-gold beard.

She said, with a deep, sweet tone, all unlike the flat conventional accent of the age: “Let it be quite understood that I don’t want anything done to me. I consented to come here. The Director of Drama and the Director of Health were so pathetic about it all that I thought it was the least I could do. I said I was quite willing to hear about your service, but I do not want anything done.”

“Better tell him inside,” said Miles.

He led her to Dr. Beamish’s room.

“Great State!” said Dr. Beamish, with eyes for the beard alone.

“Yes,” she said. “It is a shock, isn’t it? I’ve got used to it by now but I can understand how people feel seeing it for the first time.”

“Is it real?”

“Pull.”

“It is strong. Can’t they do anything about it?”

“Oh they’ve tried everything.”

Dr. Beamish was so deeply interested that he forgot Miles’s presence. “Klugmann’s Operation, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“It does go wrong like that every now and then. They had two or three cases at Cambridge.”

“I never wanted it done. I never want anything done. It was the Head of the Ballet. He insists on all the girls being sterilized. Apparently you can never dance really well again after you’ve had a baby. And I did want to dance really well. Now this is what’s happened.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Beamish. “Yes. They’re far too slap-dash. They had to put down those girls at Cambridge, too. There was no cure. Well, we’ll attend to you, young lady. Have you any arrangements to make or shall I take you straight away?”

“But I don’t want to be put down. I told your assistant here, I’ve simply consented to come at all, because the Director of Drama cried so, and he’s rather a darling. I’ve not the smallest intention of letting you kill me.”

While she spoke, Dr. Beamish’s geniality froze. He looked at her with hatred, not speaking. Then he picked up the pink form. “Then this no longer applies?”

“No.”

“Then for State’s sake,” said Dr. Beamish, very angry, “what are you wasting my time for? I’ve got more than a hundred urgent cases waiting outside and you come in here to tell me that the Director of Drama is a darling. I know the Director of Drama. We live side by side in the same ghastly hostel. He’s a pest. And I’m going to write a report to the Ministry about this tomfoolery which will make him and the lunatic who thinks he can perform a Klugmann, come round to me begging for extermination. And then I’ll put them at the bottom of the queue. Get her out of here, Plastic, and let some sane people in.”

Miles led her into the public waiting room. “What an old beast,” she said. “What a perfect beast. I’ve never been spoken to like that before even in the ballet school. He seemed so nice at first.”

“It’s his professional feeling,” said Miles. “He was naturally put out at losing such an attractive patient.”

She smiled. Her beard was not so thick as quite to obscure her delicate ovoid of cheek and chin. She might have been peeping at him over ripe heads of barley.

Her smile started in her wide grey eyes. Her lips under her golden moustachios were unpainted, tactile. A line of pale down sprang below them and ran through the centre of the chin, spreading and thickening and growing richer in colour till it met the full flow of the whiskers, but leaving on either side, clear and tender, two symmetrical zones, naked and provocative. So might have smiled some carefree deacon in the colonnaded schools of fifth-century Alexandria and struck dumb the heresiarchs.

“I think your beard is beautiful.”

“Do you really? I can’t help liking it too. I can’t help liking anything about myself, can you?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

“That’s not natural.”

Clamour at the outer door interrupted the talk. Like gulls round a lighthouse the impatient victims kept up an irregular flap and slap on the panels.

“We’re all ready, Plastic,” said a senior official. “What’s going on this morning?”

What was going on? Miles could not answer. Turbulent sea birds seemed to be dashing themselves against the light in his own heart.