The Point of View | Page 6

below the window was deserted. Back in my chair again, I sat
musing idly when a faint sound that was not the rumbling of the
professor's voice attracted my attention. I identified it shortly as the
buzzing of a heavy fly, butting its head stupidly against the pane of
glass that separated the small laboratory from the large room beyond. I
wondered casually what the viewpoint of a fly was like, and ended by
flashing the light on the creature.
For some moments I saw nothing other than I had been seeing right
along from my own personal point of view, because, as van
Manderpootz explained later, the psychons from the miserable brain of
a fly are too few to produce any but the vaguest of impressions. But
gradually I became aware of a picture, a queer and indescribable scene.
Flies are color-blind. That was my first impression, for the world was a
dull panorama of greys and whites and blacks. Flies are extremely
nearsighted; when I had finally identified the scene as the interior of the
familiar room, I discovered that it seemed enormous to the insect,
whose vision did not extend more than six feet, though it did take in
almost a complete sphere, so that the creature could see practically in
all directions at once. But perhaps the most astonishing thing, though I
did not think of it until later, was that the compound eye of the insect,
did not convey to it the impression of a vast number of separate
pictures, such as the eye produces when a microphotograph is taken
through it. The fly sees one picture just as we do; in the same way as
our brain rights the upside-down image cast on our retina, the fly's
brain reduces the compound image to one. And beyond these
impressions were a wild hodge-podge of smell-sensations, and a
strange desire to burst through the invisible glass barrier into the

brighter light beyond. But I had no time to analyze these sensations, for
suddenly there was a flash of something infinitely clearer than the dim
cerebrations of a fly.
For half a minute or longer I was unable to guess what that momentary
flash had been. I knew that I had seen something incredibly lovely, that
I had tapped a viewpoint that looked upon something whose very
presence caused ecstasy, but whose viewpoint it was, or what that
flicker of beauty had been, were questions beyond my ability to answer.
I slipped off the attitudinizor and sat staring perplexedly at the buzzing
fly on the pane of glass. Out in the other room van Manderpootz
continued his harangue to the repentant Carter, and off in a corner
invisible from my position I could hear the rustle of papers as Miss
Fitch transcribed endless notes. I puzzled vainly over the problem of
what had happened, and then the solution dawned on me.
The fly must have buzzed between me and one of the occupants of the
outer laboratory. I had been following its flight with the faintly visible
beam of the attitudinizor's light, and that beam must have flickered
momentarily on the head of one of the three beyond the glass. But
which? Van Manderpootz himself? It must have been either the
professor or Carter, since the secretary was quite beyond range of the
light.
It seemed improbable that the cold and brilliant mind of van
Manderpootz could be the agency of the sort of emotional ecstasy I had
sensed. It must therefore, have been the head of the mild and
inoffensive little Carter that the beam had tapped. With a feeling of
curiosity I slipped the device back on my own head and sent the beam
sweeping dimly into the larger room.
It did not at the time occur to me that such a procedure was quite as
discreditable as eavesdropping, or even more dishonorable, if you come
right down to it, because it meant the theft of far more personal
information than one could ever convey by the spoken word. But all I
considered at the moment was my own curiosity; I wanted to learn
what sort of viewpoint could produce that strange, instantaneous flash

of beauty. If the proceeding was unethical--well, Heaven knows I was
punished for it.
So I turned the attitudinizor on Carter. At the moment, he was listening
respectfully to van Manderpootz, and I sensed clearly his respect for
the great man, a respect that had in it a distinct element of fear. I could
hear Carter's impression of the booming voice of the professor,
sounding somewhat like the modulated thunder of a god, which was not
far from the little man's actual opinion of his master. I perceived
Carter's opinion of himself, and his self-picture was an even more
mouselike portrayal than my