incorporated them into his doctor’s thesis. My work in superstition and neurosis was just a side line then, and partly because I was sick with pneumonia for two months I didn’t read his thesis until after he’d gotten his degree.”
Sawtelle blinked. His face resumed its usual worried expression. A look of vague disappointment came into Mrs. Sawtelle’s black-button eyes, as if she would have liked to read the thesis, lingering over each paragraph, letting her suspicions have full scope, before hearing the explanation.
“I was very angry,” Norman continued, “and intended to expose him. But then I heard he’d died. There was some hint of suicide. He was an unbalanced chap. How he’d hoped to get away with such an out-and-out steal, I don’t know, anyway, I decided not to do anything about it, for his family’s sake. You see, it would have supplied a reason for thinking he had committed suicide.”
Mrs. Sawtelle looked incredulous.
“But, Norman,” Sawtelle commented anxiously, “was that really wise? I mean to keep silent. Weren’t you taking a chance? I mean with regard to your academic reputation?”
Abruptly Mrs. Sawtelle’s manner changed.
“Put that thing back in the stacks, Hervey, and forget about it,” she directed curtly. Then she smiled archly at Norman. “I’ve been forgetting I have a surprise for you, Professor Saylor. Come down to the sound booth now, and I’ll show you. It won’t take a minute. Come along, Hervey.”
Norman had no excuse ready, so he accompanied the Sawtelles to the rooms of the speech department at the other end of Morton, wondering how the speech department ever found any use for someone with as nasal and affected a voice as Evelyn Sawtelle, even if she did happen to be a professor’s wife and a thwarted tragedienne.
The sound booth was dim and quiet, a solid box with soundresistant walls and double windows.
Mrs. Sawtelle took a disk from the cabinet, put it on one of the three turntables, and adjusted a couple of dials. Norman jerked. For an instant he thought that a truck was roaring toward the sound booth and would momentarily crash through the insulating walls. Then the abominable noise pouring from the amplifier changed to a strangely pulsing wail or whir, as of wind prying at a house. It struck a less usual chord, though, in Norman’s agitated memory.
Mrs. Sawtelle darted back and swiveled the dials.
“I made a mistake,” she said. “That’s some modernistic music or other. Hervey, switch on the light. Here’s the record I wanted.” She put it on one of the other turntables.
“It sounded awful, whatever it was,” her husband observed.
Norman had identified his memory. It was of an Australian bull-roarer a colleague had once demonstrated for him. The curved slat of wood, whirled at the end of a cord, made exactly the same sound. The aborigines used it in their rain magic.
“… but if, in these times of misunderstanding and strife, we willfully or carelessly forget that every word and thought must refer to something in the real world, if we allow references to the unreal and the nonexistent to creep into our minds
Again Norman started. For now it was his own voice that was coming out of the amplifier and he had an odd sense of jerking back in time.
“Surprised?” Evelyn Sawtelle questioned coyly. “It’s that talk on semantics you gave the students last week. We had a mike spotted by the speaker’s rostrum — I suppose you thought it was for amplification
— and we made a sneak recording, as we call it. We cut it down here.”
She indicated the heavier, cement-based turntable for making recordings. Her hands fluttered around the dials.
“We can do all sorts of things down here,” she babbled on. “Mix all sorts of sounds. Music against voices. And —”
“Words can hurt us, you know. And oddly enough, it’s the words that refer to things that aren’t, that can hurt us most. Why…”
It was hard for Norman to appear
Sawtelle blinked. His face resumed its usual worried expression. A look of vague disappointment came into Mrs. Sawtelle’s black-button eyes, as if she would have liked to read the thesis, lingering over each paragraph, letting her suspicions have full scope, before hearing the explanation.
“I was very angry,” Norman continued, “and intended to expose him. But then I heard he’d died. There was some hint of suicide. He was an unbalanced chap. How he’d hoped to get away with such an out-and-out steal, I don’t know, anyway, I decided not to do anything about it, for his family’s sake. You see, it would have supplied a reason for thinking he had committed suicide.”
Mrs. Sawtelle looked incredulous.
“But, Norman,” Sawtelle commented anxiously, “was that really wise? I mean to keep silent. Weren’t you taking a chance? I mean with regard to your academic reputation?”
Abruptly Mrs. Sawtelle’s manner changed.
“Put that thing back in the stacks, Hervey, and forget about it,” she directed curtly. Then she smiled archly at Norman. “I’ve been forgetting I have a surprise for you, Professor Saylor. Come down to the sound booth now, and I’ll show you. It won’t take a minute. Come along, Hervey.”
Norman had no excuse ready, so he accompanied the Sawtelles to the rooms of the speech department at the other end of Morton, wondering how the speech department ever found any use for someone with as nasal and affected a voice as Evelyn Sawtelle, even if she did happen to be a professor’s wife and a thwarted tragedienne.
The sound booth was dim and quiet, a solid box with soundresistant walls and double windows.
Mrs. Sawtelle took a disk from the cabinet, put it on one of the three turntables, and adjusted a couple of dials. Norman jerked. For an instant he thought that a truck was roaring toward the sound booth and would momentarily crash through the insulating walls. Then the abominable noise pouring from the amplifier changed to a strangely pulsing wail or whir, as of wind prying at a house. It struck a less usual chord, though, in Norman’s agitated memory.
Mrs. Sawtelle darted back and swiveled the dials.
“I made a mistake,” she said. “That’s some modernistic music or other. Hervey, switch on the light. Here’s the record I wanted.” She put it on one of the other turntables.
“It sounded awful, whatever it was,” her husband observed.
Norman had identified his memory. It was of an Australian bull-roarer a colleague had once demonstrated for him. The curved slat of wood, whirled at the end of a cord, made exactly the same sound. The aborigines used it in their rain magic.
“… but if, in these times of misunderstanding and strife, we willfully or carelessly forget that every word and thought must refer to something in the real world, if we allow references to the unreal and the nonexistent to creep into our minds
Again Norman started. For now it was his own voice that was coming out of the amplifier and he had an odd sense of jerking back in time.
“Surprised?” Evelyn Sawtelle questioned coyly. “It’s that talk on semantics you gave the students last week. We had a mike spotted by the speaker’s rostrum — I suppose you thought it was for amplification
— and we made a sneak recording, as we call it. We cut it down here.”
She indicated the heavier, cement-based turntable for making recordings. Her hands fluttered around the dials.
“We can do all sorts of things down here,” she babbled on. “Mix all sorts of sounds. Music against voices. And —”
“Words can hurt us, you know. And oddly enough, it’s the words that refer to things that aren’t, that can hurt us most. Why…”
It was hard for Norman to appear
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