The Point of View | Page 7

own impression of him. When, for an
instant, he glanced my way, I sensed his impression of me, and while
I'm sure that Dixon Wells is not the imbecile he appears to van
Manderpootz, I'm equally sure that he's not the debonair man of the
world he seemed to Carter. All in all, Carter's point of view seemed that
of a timid, inoffensive, retiring, servile little man, and I wondered all
the more what could have caused that vanished flash of beauty in a
mind like his.
There was no trace of it now. His attention was completely taken up by
the voice of van Manderpootz, who had passed from a personal
appraisal of Carter's stupidity to a general lecture on the fallacies of the
unified field theory as presented by his rivals Corveille and Shrimski.
Carter was listening with an almost worshipful regard, and I could feel
his surges of indignation against the villains who dared to disagree with
the authority of van Manderpootz.
I sat there intent on the strange double vision of the attitudinizor, which
was in some respects like a Horsten psychomat--that is, one is able to
see both through his own eyes and through the eyes of his subject. Thus
I could see van Manderpootz and Carter quite clearly, but at the same
time I could see or sense what Carter saw and sensed. Thus I perceived
suddenly through my own eyes that the professor had ceased talking to
Carter, and had turned at the approach of somebody as yet invisible to
me, while at the same time, through Carter's eyes, I saw that vision of
ecstasy which had flashed for a moment in his mind. I saw--description
is utterly impossible, but I saw a woman who, except possibly for the

woman of the idealizator screen, was the most beautiful creature I had
ever seen!
I say description is impossible. That is the literal truth, for her coloring,
her expression, her figure, as seen through Carter's eyes, were
completely unlike anything expressible by words. I was fascinated, I
could do nothing but watch, and I felt a wild surge of jealousy as I
caught the adoration in the attitude of the humble Carter. She was
glorious, magnificent, indescribable. It was with an effort that I
untangled myself from the web of fascination enough to catch Carter's
thought of her name. "Lisa," he was thinking. "Lisa."
What she said to van Manderpootz was in tones too low for me to hear,
and apparently too low for Carter's ears as well, else I should have
heard her words through the attitudinizor. But both of us heard van
Manderpootz's bellow in answer.
"I don't care how the dictionary pronounces the word!" he roared. "The
way van Manderpootz pronounces a word is right!"
The glorious Lisa turned silently and vanished. For a few moments I
watched her through Carter's eyes, but as she neared the laboratory
door, he turned his attention again to van Manderpootz, and she was
lost to my view.
And as I saw the professor close his dissertation and approach me, I
slipped the attitudinizor from my head and forced myself to a measure
of calm.
"Who is she?" I demanded. "I've got to meet her!"
He looked blankly at me. "Who's who?"
"Lisa! Who's Lisa?"
There was not a flicker in the cool blue eyes of van Manderpootz. "I
don't know any Lisa," he said indifferently.

"But you were just talking to her! Right out there!"
Van Manderpootz stared curiously at me; then little by little a shrewd
suspicion seemed to dawn in his broad, intelligent features. "Hah!" he
said. "Have you, by any chance, been using the attitudinizor?"
I nodded, chill apprehension gripping me.
"And is it also true that you chose to investigate the viewpoint of Carter
out there?" At my nod, he stepped to the door that joined the two rooms,
and closed it. When he faced me again, it was with features working
into lines of amusement that suddenly found utterance in booming
laughter. "Haw!" he roared. "Do you know who beautiful Lisa is? She's
Fitch!"
"Fitch? You're mad! She's glorious, and Fitch is plain and scrawny and
ugly. Do you think I'm a fool?"
"You ask an embarrassing question," chuckled the professor. "Listen to
me, Dixon. The woman you saw was my secretary, Miss Fitch, seen
through the eyes of Carter. Don't you understand? The idiot Carter's in
love with her!"
* * * * *
I suppose I walked the upper levels half the night, oblivious alike of the
narrow strip of stars that showed between the towering walls of
twenty-first century New York, and the intermittent roar of traffic from
the freight levels. Certainly this was the worst predicament of all those
into which the fiendish contraptions of the great