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professors (Es had a few private students). Here in our home city we had status, you see. We were
looked upon as being frightfully clever and sophisticated, the local  bohemian set (though Lord knows
we were anything but that). Whereas out in the real world we d have been greenhorns.
We were scared of the world, you see. Scared that it would find out that all our vaunted abilities and
projects didn t amount to much and that as for solid achievements, there just hadn t been any. Es was
only a mediocre artist; she was afraid to learn from the great, especially the living great, for fear her own
affected little individuality would be engulfed. Louis was no philosopher; he merely cultivated a series
of intellectual enthusiasms, living in a state of feverish private and fruitless excitement over the
thoughts of other men. My own defense against reality consisted of knowingness and a cynical attitude; I
had a remarkable packrat accumulation of information; I had a line on everything and also always
knew why it wasn t worth bothering with. As for Gene, he was the best of us and also the worst. A bit
younger, he still applied himself to his studies, and showed promise in nuclear physics and math. But
something, perhaps his small size and puritanical farm background, had made him moody and contrary,
and given him an inclination toward physical violence that threatened some day to get him into real
trouble. As it was, he d had his license taken away for reckless driving. And several times we d had to
intervene once unsuccessfully to keep him from getting beaten up in bars.
We talked a great deal about our  work. Actually we spent much more time reading magazines and
detective stories, lazing around, getting drunk, and conducting our endless intellectual palavers.
If we had one real virtue, it was our loyalty to each other, though it wouldn t take a cynic to point out
that we desperately needed each other for an audience. Still, there was some genuine feeling there.
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best of fritz leiber
In short, like many people on a planet where mind is wakening and has barely become aware of the eon-
old fetters and blindfolds oppressing it, and has had just the faintest glimpse of its tremendous possible
future destiny, we were badly cowed frightened, frustrated, self-centered, slothful, vain, pretentious.
Considering how set we were getting in those attitudes, it is all the more amazing that Helen had the
tremendous effect on us that she did. For within a month of meeting her, our attitude toward the whole
world had sweetened, we had become genuinely interested in people Instead of being frightened of
them, and we were beginning to do real creative work. An astonishing achievement for an unknown
little waitress!
It wasn t that she took us in hand or set us an example, or anything like that. Quite the opposite. I don t
think that Helen was responsible for a half dozen positive statements (and only one really impulsive act)
during the whole time we knew her. Rather, she was like a Great Books discussion leader, who never
voices an opinion of his own, but only leads other people to voice theirs playing the part of an
intellectual midwife.
Louis and Gene and I would drop over to Es s, say, and find Helen getting dressed behind the screen or
taking a cup of tea after a session of posing. We d start a discussion and for a while Helen would listen
dreamily, just another shadow in the high old shadowy room. But then those startling little questions of
hers would begin to come, each one opening a new vista of thought. By the time the discussion was
finished which might be at the Blue Moon bar or under the campus maples or watching the water
ripple in the old coal pits we d have got somewhere. Instead of ending in weary shoulder-shrugging or
cynical grousing at the world or getting drunk out of sheer frustration, we d finish up with a plan some
facts to check, something to write or shape or try.
And then, people! How would we ever have got close to people without Helen? Without Helen, Old Gus
would have stayed an ancient and bleary-eyed dishwasher at Benny s. But with Helen, Gus became for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]