Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

“But the Dictator of Emotion has announced that Mechanical Companions are perfectly respectable,” pleaded his wife, in desperation. V67 looked at her. His eyes were destitute of compassion. “He was speaking of the female Companions,” he said. “That sort of thing is all right for a man.” “It’s a strange rule that doesn’t work both ways,” said the wife, in a _ despairing tone. | Brutal and primitive passions were flooding V67 in waves. Something loathsome and aberrant in his nature surged to the surface, and for a moment he felt an impulse to strike his wife—actually to strike her—with the flat of his hand. : | The impulse generated its own negation. Man is not built to cross the humanizing gulf of forty centuries and revert to the savagery of a dead world without experiencing an overwhelming reaction. No sooner had V67 experienced the detestable emotion than a great shame and horror came upon him. He sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hand. : Compassionately his wife rose and crossed to where he was sitting. Slipping to the floor beside him, she rested her blond, talc-wreathed head against his right knee. : “My poor darling,” she whispered. “Do you imagine for a moment that he has taken your place in my affections? Why, he is a mere mechanical toy, an amusing diversion. Even if he does talk divinely of moonlight and roses he is, in essence, nothing but a gadget. I was lonely, and horribly unhappy, and I wanted to make you jealous. But if you will give up that creature V67 was silent for a moment. Then his hand descended, and caressed his wife’s coiffure. As the flimsy adornment slipped between his fingers he said: “You are right, my sweet. Tomorrow I shall ask Supervisor of Emotion T74 to give me permission to dismantle Mechanical Companion GH8. You will doubtless be relieved when the bosom records are destroyed, and the tender, individual nuances of her face, throat and limbs cease to exist as parts of an illusionary whole.” His wife looked up at him. She thought: “He will give up Mechanical Companion GH8 for my sake, but he still loves her. He is going to dismantle her because he can not bear the thought of surrendering her to another. In his sight she will always remain as young and lovely and inaccessible as the © figures on a Grecian urn. How did the ancient poet phrase it? “She can not fade, though thou hast not thy bliss. For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair. : “TY shall have a real rival now.” . There was a far-away look in V67’s eyes as he continued, tenderly, to caress his wife’s silver coiffure. : dz . connicboo