Read Online Slow Sculpture by Theodore Sturgeon - Free Book Online Page A

courts is a process of refinement, constant purification.” He leaned forward excitedly. “Look, laws aredreams, when they’re first thought of—inspirations! There’s something … uh … holy about that, something beyond the world of men. And that’s why when the world of men comes into contact with it, the wording of the inspiration has to be redone in the books, or interpreted in the courtroom. That’s what we mean by ‘precedents’—that’s what the big dusty books are for, to create and maintain consistency under the law.”
    “What about justice?” murmured Sam, and then quickly, as if he hadn’t meant to change the subject, “That’s not what I meant by contradictin’, counselor. I mean all laws that all men have dreamed up and lived by and got theirselves killed over. Tell me something, counselor, is there even one single law so right for men that it shows up in every country that is or was?”
    O’Banion made a startled sound, as half a dozen excellent examples flashed into his mind at once, collided, and, under the first examination, faded away.
    “Because,” said Sam in a voice which was friendly and almost apologetic, “if there ain’t such a law, you might say every set of laws ever dreamed up, even the sets that were bigger and older and lasted longer than the one you practice, even any set you can imagine for the future-they’re all goin’ to contradict one another some way or other. So, who’s really to say whose set of laws are right—or fit to build anything on, or breed up a handful of folks fit to run it?”
    O’Banion stared at his glass without touching it. For an awful moment he was totally disoriented; a churning pit yawned under his feet and he must surely topple into it. He thought wildly, you can’t leave me here, old man! You’d better say something else, and fast, or I … or I …
    There was a sort of pressure in his ears, like sound too high-pitched for humans. Sam said softly, “You really think Sue Martin ain’t good enough for you?”
    “I didn’t say that, I didn’t say that!” O’Banion blurted, hoarse with indignation, and fright, and relief as well. He shuddered back and away from the lip of this personal precipice and looked redly at the composed old face. “I said different, too different, that’s all. I’m thinking of her as well as—”
    For once Sam bluntly interrupted, as if he had no patience with what O’Banion was saying. “What’s different?”
    “Background, I told you. Don’t you know what that is?”
    “You mean the closer a girl’s background is to yours, the better chance you’d have bein’ happy the rest of your life?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?” The perfect example popped into his mind, and he speared a finger out and downward toward the piano. “Did you hear what she was singing just before you got here? ‘The boy next door.’ Don’t you understand what that really means, why that song, that idea, hits home to so many people? Everybody understands that; it’s the appeal of what’s familiar, close by—the similar background I’m talking about!”
    “You have to shout?” chuckled Sam. Sobering, he said, “Well, counselor, if you’re goin’ to think consistently, like you said, couldn’t you dream up a background even more sim’lar than your next-door neighbor?”
    O’Banion stared at him blankly, and old Sam Bittelman asked, “Are you an only child, counselor?”
    O’Banion closed his eyes and saw the precipice there waiting; he snapped them open in sheer self-defense. His hands hurt and he looked down, and slowly released them from the edge of the table. He whispered, “What are you trying to tell me?”
    His bland face the very portrait of candor, Sam said, “Shucks, son, I couldn’t tell you a thing, not a blessed thing. Why, I don’t know anything you don’t know to tell you! I ain’t asked you a single question you couldn’t’ve asked yourself, and the answers were all yours, not mine.