Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION in effect, that this treatment has been successful.” “One hundred per cent!” ““Good, good . .! Ah, here’s your taxi!’ Professor Grund- hoff’s handclasp was firm and vigorous. “One last word of warning before you leave. The symptoms of recurring senescence are unmistakable. One night you will feel young and secure in your youthful- ness; but in the morning you will feel dull and heavy, your head will ache, your vision will be impaired, your cheeks will be like parchment. When that happens, you must come back to me immediately!” In the taxi, Joseph sat on the edge of the seat, staring first through one window, then through the other. Buoy- ~ ant with optimism, tense with joyous anticipation, he found it impossible to relax. In a state of tingling eagerness, he burned with a lust for living. It was fantastic, he mused, the difference a couple of years can make in a man’s life. Two short years—and the implosion of love for a woman. Considered in cold-blooded retrospect, it was the onset of senescence at 69 which had 52 driven him to the Near East to avoid a nervous break- down. He had, of course, been fortunate. Great wealth had always been his prerogative, so he had been able to follow his doctor’s advice. Five months later, re- invigorated in body and mind, fretting to return home and settle down to money- making again, he had met Sita in a hotel in Cairo. Immediately life had taken on a dazzling irridescence. Devoluting like an exotic bud, it had revealed spectroscopic depth upon depth and mean- ings undreamed of. His quickened senses had per- ceived a myriad coruscating colours, and sounds, tastes and perfumes unimaginable. He had trembled with rap- turous living for, at last, he had fallen in love. Previously the Midas-motif had been his sole incentive; inane servitude to a fabulous fortune; the itch for increase. And the God of Gain had permitted no dalliance with the opposite sex. And now, at the néther end of the normal life-span, the love virus had flooded his system, topsy-turvying all pre- vious concepts, replacing Gain with Love as life’s leit-motif. comiclooks.corn