The Point of View | Page 8

van Manderpootz had
thrust me.
In love with a point of view! In love with a woman who had no
existence apart from the beglamoured eyes of Carter. It wasn't Lisa
Fitch I loved; indeed, I rather hated her angular ugliness. What I had
fallen in love with was the way she looked to Carter, for there is
nothing in the world quite as beautiful as a lover's conception of his
sweetheart.

This predicament was far worse than my former ones. When I had
fallen in love with a girl already dead, I could console myself with the
thought of what might have been. When I had fallen in love with my
own ideal--well, at least she was mine, even if I couldn't have her. But
to fall in love with another man's conception! The only way that
conception could even continue to exist was for Carter to remain in
love with Lisa Fitch, which rather effectually left me outside the picture
altogether. She was absolutely unattainable to me, for Heaven knows I
didn't want the real Lisa Fitch--"real" meaning, of course, the one who
was real to me. I suppose in the end Carter's Lisa Fitch was as real as
the skinny scarecrow my eyes saw.
She was unattainable--or was she? Suddenly an echo of a
long-forgotten psychology course recurred to me. Attitudes are habits.
Viewpoints are attitudes. Therefore viewpoints are habits. And habits
can be learned!
There was the solution! All I had to do was to learn, or to acquire by
practice, the viewpoint of Carter. What I had to do was literally to put
myself in his place, to look at things in his way, to see his viewpoint.
For once I learned to do that, I could see in Lisa Fitch the very things
he saw, and the vision would become reality to me as well as to him.
I planned carefully. I did not care to face the sarcasm of the great van
Manderpootz; therefore I would work in secret. I would visit his
laboratory at such times as he had classes or lectures, and I would use
the attitudinizor to study the viewpoint of Carter, and to, as it were,
practice that viewpoint. Thus I would have the means at hand of testing
my progress, for all I had to do was glance at Miss Fitch without the
attitudinizor. As soon as I began to perceive in her what Carter saw, I
would know that success was imminent.
Those next two weeks were a strange interval of time. I haunted the
laboratory of van Manderpootz at odd hours, having learned from the
University office what periods he devoted to his courses. When one day
I found the attitudinizor missing, I prevailed on Carter to show me
where it was kept, and he, influenced doubtless by my friendship for
the man he practically worshipped, indicated the place without question.

But later I suspect that he began to doubt his wisdom in this, for I know
he thought it very strange for me to sit for long periods staring at him; I
caught all sorts of puzzled questions in his mind, though as I have said,
these were hard for me to decipher until I began to learn Carter's
personal system of symbolism by which he thought. But at least one
man was pleased--my father, who took my absences from the office
and neglect of business as signs of good health and spirits, and
congratulated me warmly on the improvement.
But the experiment was beginning to work, I found myself
sympathizing with Carter's viewpoint, and little by little the mad world
in which he lived was becoming as logical as my own. I learned to
recognize colors through his eyes; I learned to understand form and
shape; most fundamental of all, I learned his values, his attitudes, his
tastes. And these last were a little inconvenient at times, for on the
several occasions when I supplemented my daily calls with visits to van
Manderpootz in the evening, I found some difficulty in separating my
own respectful regard for the great man from Carter's unreasoning
worship, with the result that I was on the verge of blurting out the
whole thing to him several times. And perhaps it was a guilty
conscience, but I kept thinking that the shrewd blue eyes of the
professor rested on me with a curiously suspicious expression all
evening.
The thing was approaching its culmination. Now and then, when I
looked at the angular ugliness of Miss Fitch, I began to catch glimpses
of the same miraculous beauty that Carter found in her--glimpses only,
but harbingers of success. Each day I arrived at the laboratory with
increasing eagerness, for each day brought me nearer to the
achievement I sought. That is, my eagerness