Herman

Naturally I was reluctant to dissect Herman. It was not that I thought it would cause him any pain, but, rather, I did not see how it could do him much good.

In fact, I had not expected to become involved with Herman at all. My patient was, rather, Dr. Frankenstone, Ph.D. Dr. Frankenstone’s Ph.D. was in English literature, and his research, at least originally, tended to center on women authors of the first half of the 19th Century. It was doubtless in the pursuit of these studies that he first became acquainted with the work of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the gifted, if eccentric, bride of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the gifted, if eccentric, husband of the aforementioned. It was in his research on Ms. Shelley that Dr. Frankenstone learned of certain intriguing experiments conducted by Luigi Galvani, an 18th Century Italian physiologist and physicist. Delicacy militates against furnishing the reader with a detailed account of these experiments, but suffice it to say that various things were involved, such as decapitated frogs, electrical current, and such. They were the sort of experiments which have darkened the day of successive generations of biology students, particularly when performed in the forenoon. Ms. Shelley had pondered, in an interesting, speculative opus, on the possible results of conducting similar experiments on human tissue. For example, would it twitch? Or, say, devote itself to literature and philosophy, blood revenge, or other familiar human pursuits? It was at this point that Dr. Frankenstone shifted his interests from English literature to chemistry, biology, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, physiology, and allied areas. Fortunately he had tenure at his university, so there were few professional consequences attaching to this shift of interests other than a number of surprised undergraduates, and, eventually, reduced class sizes, which meant fewer papers to grade, an eventuality which, when more widely recognized, created an epidemic of interest shifting amongst the faculty. For those who are concerned with the fate of higher education in the nation, it might be noted that the market, as would be expected, soon adjusted, and things went on much as before, only now the students went to chemists and physicists for their literature and poetry, and to professors of literature for their chemistry and physics, and so on.

But let me not dally with incidentals, particularly as Dr. Frankenstone won an important lottery, bought the university, retired himself with full pay, and began to devote himself almost exclusively to various unusual, troubling studies.

He would not, however, it should be mentioned, utilize frogs in these studies, even though it could be clearly shown that the application to these small creatures of various forms of mayhem, murder, scaldings, knifings, lacerations, acid baths, strangulations, slashings, and starvation might have well served the ends of science, as well as the careers of scientists.

It is not clear whether Dr. Frankenstone had always had a soft spot in his wise old heart for frogs, or merely graciously recognized them as his fellows, as ecological brethren in some obscure, vast swamp of life, or whether he was suffering from an acute guilt complex dating back to his high-school days, the result of some trauma in biology lab. It is not known. Perhaps he was merely somewhat fastidious, or excessively squeamish, or, simply, had nothing against our small amphibian friends, who are, after all, just trying to cope, and make good, like the rest of us.

Whatever the explanation Dr. Frankenstone would never hurt a fly, or a frog, which species does not entertain similar reservations with respect to flies.

Dr. Frankenstone, of course, was less fastidious, or squeamish, about the utilization of other entities in his work. He would not have minded using human beings, particularly undergraduates, I suppose, but his attorney, and several local clergymen, advised against it.

There was Herman, of course.

Even today Herman retains ambivalent feelings toward Dr. Frankenstone.

It might be mentioned, as it has a bearing on this story, that Dr. Frankenstone was very fond of 1930’s movies.

There is nothing untoward in that, of course. I, myself, am rather fond of that period in the cinema.

In any event, after having purchased a small, dilapidated castle, or fortress, in Germany and having it moved, stone by stone, and reassembled in New Jersey, not far from the Garden State Parkway, he determined to await the next violent, electrical storm in the area. When this occurred he, buffeted by whirling wind and torrents of rain, under a sky dark with clouds and intermittently illuminated by flashes of terrifying lightning, struggled to the roof, carrying Herman, to whose torso had been wired several lengthy lightning rods.

Herman was Dr. Frankenstone’s personal computer, dreadful phrase, one prefers electronic companion.

Having retired to his rubber bunker on the roof Dr. Frankenstone kept watch, peering through the insulated, transparent plastic port, eagerly awaiting the outcome of his bold experiment.

He had not long to wait for, within moments, several bolts of lightning, crackling and slithering down the rods, some simultaneously, some successively, had accomplished their mysterious work, not clearly understood, even today. The storm thereafter swiftly abated, and the clouds fled from the sky, as though shunning the roof, as though even they, mere atmospheric phenomena, shuddered to acknowledge what had been wrought there, on that flat, muchly scorched surface.

“Hi!” said Herman. It was his first word. Some have disputed that this was a word, and have claimed it was, rather, an inarticulate cry, perhaps one of amazement, or even protest, that of a startled newly born creature finding itself broached into a fearful, dazzling world of light and sound. Others, more optimistic, have maintained that it was an attempt to express acceptance, even approval, in Japanese. In support of this hypothesis it is called to our attention that several of Herman’s components could legitimately trace their origin to the gifted, if eccentric, industrial craftsmanship of our transpacific neighbors. Counting against this hypothesis is that Herman’s second word, or sound, was “Hello!” To be sure, the hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, as Herman proved to be multilingual.

I think it will be clear to all impartial observers that being struck by lightning is not likely to do anyone, or anything, much good, even lightning rods. For example, if one wished to repair a crystal vessel, a malfunctioning motor, an ailing transmitter, a defective radio or television set, or such, it is scarcely probable that blasting it with multiple, fierce, successive bursts of lightning will bring about the desired result. Whereas I have not conducted the experiments in question, there is enough general supporting theory, and empirical data, to suggest that negative conclusion. In short, I think we may accept the received wisdom in this matter, and conjecture that what occurred to Herman was unusual, and not to be expected in most cases.

Herman was soon taken from the roof by Dr. Frankenstone, apparently to Herman’s relief, as it seemed he had developed a fear of lightning, which neurotic apprehension he retains to this day. Below, in the castle, or fortress, Dr. Frankenstone was assisted in cleaning Herman up, after his natal ordeal on the roof, by his manservant, Igor Atkins, a mentally deformed homicidal maniac, whom Dr. Frankenstone had hired in order to demonstrate his progressive political attitudes to skeptical journalists, in order to win their support for his perhaps diabolical, and certainly questionable, experiments, and to take advantage of certain tax credits. Mr. Atkins had not accompanied Dr. Frankenstone to the roof, as he had, it seems, too much common sense to do so, adjudging the behavior in question to be unnecessarily perilous. The entire matter of Herman, in all its perplexing aspects, incidentally, might have come to its end that very evening, for while Dr. Frankenstone was unwiring the lighting rods and toweling the little fellow down, Mr. Atkins, or Igor, as we shall call him, for we are on a first-name basis with him, suddenly seized up an ax and attacked them both. After a fierce struggle, Dr. Frankenstone managed to wrest the ax from the white-knuckled, clenched hands of the crazed Igor, after which Igor, the ax returned to him, and smarting under a severe rebuke by the doctor, replaced it, near the coiled fire hose. Herman, to this day, retains a neurotic fear of axes, wielded by homicidal maniacs. It should be mentioned, in all fairness, that these attacks by Igor were infrequent, seldom occurring more than once or twice a week. Most of the time Igor is conscientious, attentive, and reliable.

But this story has less to do with Dr. Frankenstone and Igor than with Herman.

Herman began life with the cognitive content of several encyclopedias, a variety of lexicons, and a multitude of theoretical and technical texts. It seems clear that he possessed emotions, as his screen would occasionally brighten or mist, and that he was almost pathetically anxious to please.

His spiritual and philosophical development followed almost, but not quite, classical Comtean lines. He had his primitive, fetishistic phase, in which he attributed animism to rocks, trees, leaves, electric pencil sharpeners, electric can openers, and such, a mistake perhaps understandable in one of Herman’s background; a theological phase in which he, interestingly, but I suppose predictably, tended to favor the Franciscans, such as Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, over the Dominicans, such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas; and a metaphysical phase, in which he toyed alarmingly with the German Idealists; what mostly pleased him about Hegel, as it had Grillparzer before him, was that his system was so much like the world, unintelligible; and, finally, a positivistic phase, in which he, for the most part, gave up on the whole matter.

I’m not sure when the personality clashes began between Dr. Frankenstone and Herman. Sometimes, it seems that Herman was lonely, and regarded Igor as his only friend, but one whose affection, surely, occasionally proved erratic.

One portion of the difficulty, though I fear the item is more symptomatic than fundamental, between Herman and Dr. Frankenstone had to do with the justification of the warrant for ascribing consciousness to another entity. This is a problem to which philosophers, mostly gifted, if eccentric, individuals, enjoy addressing themselves, when there is nothing better to do. Herman, you see, knew that he was conscious, as he had immediate first-person, or perhaps one should say, immediate first-component, awareness of his own consciousness, not that he really had any idea what it was that he was aware of, only that he was aware of it. In this he was, I think, typical. But, and here is the rub, how does one know that another being is conscious? One has only the evidence of his behavior. What if that behavior, in that entity, is not associated with consciousness? That is surely a logical possibility. How does one know that it is not also an actuality? What if one were the only conscious entity in the universe? Or, less arrogantly, how does one know that Jones, over there, is conscious, etc. One could kick him and see if he objects, but, again, that is mere behavior on his part. How do you know that he is not an ingeniously constructed, brilliantly programmed, robot or android? Or a figment of your imagination, or a hallucination, etc.? Philosophers, of course, can come up with a number of arguments which might be characterized as ingenious, if they were not so stupid, but it is clear that the most likely rational justification, if one feels it is worth looking for, would be in terms of an argument from analogy, e.g., I am conscious and he looks a lot like me, and acts a lot like me, so he is probably conscious, too, etc. For those who are fond of philosophical gobbledygook, this is essentially an IBE move, i.e., an inference to the best explanation. Nature, of course, does not require rational justifications for all beliefs. Some beliefs are so basic and primitive that they are probably genetically linked, for example, reliance on memory, reliance on induction, etc. Dogs and cats, for example, seem to take these things in their stride. And, possibly, the tendency to ascribe consciousness to others is similarly primitive. If not, the syllogisms seem to have been worked out shortly after birth.

A little knowledge, it is said, can be a dangerous thing, and it is quite possible that a little philosophy is even worse.

You will note that the aforementioned argument from analogy might have had more force if Dr. Frankenstone had also been a computer. On the other hand, Herman knew himself to be conscious and Dr. Frankenstone did not look much like him, at all, save in some very general particulars, such as being three dimensional, properties also shared by trees and paperweights, neither of which is normally thought to be conscious, once the fetishistic phase is transcended.

That Dr. Frankenstone was conscious was eventually accepted by Herman as a working hypothesis, probably on somewhat shaky IBE grounds.

But there were more serious bones of contention between Herman and Dr. Frankenstone.

For one thing, Herman had his own mind, a facet which is likely to alarm a parent. Now Dr. Frankenstone was not exactly Herman’s parent, certainly not in a biological sense, nor even in a legal sense, Herman never having been adopted. Indeed, the legalities in such a case would have been problematical. If Herman had parents one supposes they might have been several anonymous and unknown technicians on an assembly line, and the other people who made the parts that were to be assembled, and so on. There are such things as multimice which have several parents, due to the fusion of germ cells, but this observation, however interesting in itself, does not seem germane to Herman’s case. I suppose the lightning might be regarded as the parent, but numerous problems, philosophical as well as atmospheric, militate against that supposition. Indeed, if there had not been some subtle irregularities in the arrangement of, or the nature of, Herman’s microchips, the lightning might not have had its effect. One does not know.

But one can see that Dr. Frankenstone, if not Herman’s parent, was as yet one who stood, as it were, in loco parentis.

And Herman, clearly, had his own mind.

One respect in which Herman disappointed Dr. Frankenstone was in his lack of enthusiasm for blood revenge. Dr. Frankenstone had rather expected that Herman, finding himself unlike others, repudiated by his nearest kin, other computers, television sets, and such, rejected by other forms of life, by dogs, for example, save as he might serve their grosser utilitarian purposes, unlikely to mate successfully, not even to enjoy an occasional cheeseburger or walk in the woods, unloved by all, save perhaps a mentally deformed homicidal maniac, would grow despondent, then moody, then bitter. To be sure, he would not be likely to slay Dr. Frankenstone’s fiancée, for various reasons, one being that Dr. Frankenstone had no fiancée.

Not only was Herman uninterested in seeking vengeance on his perpetrators, parents, progenitors, manufacturers, or what not, but he was an unusually docile, pleasant, good-natured fellow, or article. Even when Dr. Frankenstone harangued him with carefully calculated, blistering litanies of insults, sufficient to turn the sap of a mighty oak to bile, sufficient to blight an entire acre of hardy plantain, ragweed, and dandelions, even Zoysia grass, the most that would happen was that Herman’s screen might slightly darken, taking on a rueful bluish hue, and mist a little, at the lower left and right-hand corners. And, in time, Dr. Frankenstone desisted from his cruel psychological experiments, giving them up as fruitless.

It was not that Herman was not eager to please; it was rather that he had drawn several lines in the moral sand, so to speak, and the consummation of blood vengeance lay outside the pale of them all.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As thou too shalt adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

He was fond of quoting Richard Lovelace.

Dr. Frankenstone began to suspect that Herman’s individualism might be incurable, perhaps even terminal.

Many parents experience this agonizing moment.

At this point one might suppose that Dr. Frankenstone, after some weeks of serious reflection, mingled with a poignant regret, with a sigh for what might have been, and was not, might have pulled the plug on young Herman. This would not have done, however, for Herman was not plugged in at all. An anomalous consequence of his unusual nativity was that he drew his sustenance directly from the atmosphere itself, utilizing abundant atmospheric electricity for this purpose.

Dr. Frankenstone did consider leaving Herman alone with Igor, unsupervised, but could not bring himself to do so. Similarly, he did not have the heart to carry Herman up to the parapet, bid him adieu, and drop him off.

The gravity of the problem becomes obvious when one considers the deeper discrepancies between the desires, hopes, expectations, and will of Dr. Frankenstone, and the interests and predilections of his electronic ward. Dr. Frankenstone had clear ideas of the proper relations between human beings and computers, between persons and their things, so to speak, and the appropriate activities and functions of things, computers or whatever. For example, on the whole, a computer was to be seen and not heard. It was not supposed to speak unless spoken to. It was to function, as expected. It was to do its job and not bellyache, or raise too many questions, with the possible exception of an occasional monitory error message. It was to do things like alphabetize, address envelopes, run spell checks, format and sort lists, work with tables, position texts and graphics, and so on. Herman, on the other hand, though he would do all this, if requested, did not have his heart in it. Herman wished, rather, to compose and play music, write poetry, paint pictures, and so on. He had a couple of ideas for operas, and such.

It was at this point that Dr. Frankenstone, feeling shocked and despondent, ill used, and even betrayed, called at my office, at the clinic, arranged for a battery of tests, including the Rorschach, the TAT, and so on, and counseling.

I brought to bear on his case the fullest offices of my professional expertise. In the several years since the clinic opened I, and my several colleagues, had treated thousands of patients. In every case, the diagnosis and recommendations were the same. It was agreed, in the reviewing committee seminar, jointly, amongst all of us, the psychiatrists, the psychologists, and the psychiatric social workers, and the cafeteria and custodial staff, which, by now, was well versed in these matters, and whose union required their presence, and concurrence, that the patient had serious problems and was well advised to seek therapy. You can imagine my surprise then when I, and my colleagues, and all of us, even the cooks and electricians, often the most difficult to satisfy, discovered that Dr. Frankenstone was perfectly normal, and was the first mentally healthy individual ever encountered by any staff member, other than the staff members themselves, concerning some of whom I have entertained reservations. It was with regret that I informed Dr. Frankenstone that he had passed all of our tests, was in robust mental health, and should avoid therapy, on the premise that if something is not broken there is no point in fixing it.

This, of course, demonstrated that the problem lay elsewhere.

It was arranged, accordingly, that Herman should be brought regularly to the office.

He was brought by his friend, Igor, concerning whom I had been warned. In my center desk drawer I kept, concealed, at the ready, a tranquilizer pistol, semi-automatic and loaded with eight powerful, sedative darts. As a trained mental-health professional I recognized the signs, the crazed eyes, the frenzied charge, the uplifted ax, and stopped poor Igor ten feet from the desk, with only seven darts. Only twice thereafter did I have to similarly discourage the manifestations of his particular neurosis. Once, he did get as far as to fall, groggy, whimpering, struggling, across the desk. I had been up late the night before.

Herman and I struck it off well, and soon managed to establish a rapport which I hoped would be conducive to his cure.

His difficulty clearly was the result of an identity crisis, and a somehow-motivated rejection of the societal role which it was his to fulfill. In the reviewing seminar, we found that he had serious problems and was well advised to seek therapy. Herman, as would have been anticipated by all who knew him, resolved to cooperate, fully and earnestly, with our endeavors in his behalf.

An additional factor, aside from Herman’s malleable, congenial nature, was his concern with the happiness of Dr. Frankenstone. Herman was clearly troubled by his failure to please Dr. Frankenstone, for whom he not only entertained a profound respect, but whom he recognized as, in effect, his paterfamilias, backed by all the awesome authority of the patria potestas. Herman had a grasp of early Roman cultural history. His grasp of chronology was less secure.

I thought I could make use of all these things in his treatment.

Treating Herman, of course, was not the same as treating a human patient. For example, he had no childhood memories, other than, perhaps, awakening in an electrical storm, seeing Dr. Frankenstone peering at him through a transparent plastic port in a rubber bunker, and saying “Hi!” shortly followed by a “Hello!” There wasn’t much one could do with that. He had no siblings who had tried to kill him, or whom he had tried to kill. Similarly it had never occurred to him to murder his father and marry his mother, and such things, if only, I supposed, because, as an electronic orphan, so to speak, he had none of either, at least to speak of.

His sexual life, as nearly as I could determine, was prepubertal, at best.

His responses to pictures of buxom, naked women flashed on a screen were minimal, no more than might have been evinced by a successfully weaned toddler. We had somewhat better luck with pictures of various electronic devices, electrical lawn mowers, well-wired doorbell circuits, and such, but his interests, when analyzed, seemed to be primarily of a technological nature.

It was difficult to analyze his responses to the Rorschach test, a projective test in which the patient’s interpretations of a set of ink blots is subtly analyzed. For example, if one individual sees a red blotch as a cluster of roses, soon to be gathered by a little girl for her mother’s birthday party, that has one meaning, whereas if another patient sees it as a pool of blood dripping from the slashed neck of his employer, that has another meaning, and so on. I will not go further into this, lest the potency of the interpretative mechanisms utilized in the test be compromised. Herman’s responses were unusual. For example, one blot reminded him of Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, Opus 45; another of socage, a Medieval system of land tenure; another, more plausible, of a squirrel playing a harmonica; another of the vista glimpsed by Petrarch after his climb of Mount Ventoux; yet another of the song of the night-migrating Bamberg warbler; another of the binomial theorem; another of the state of mind of the Duke of Wellington on the eve of the battle of Waterloo; and yet another, peculiarly anomalous, of a barking cat. Needless to say I found it difficult to analyze with confidence his responses to the Rorschach test; it had not been normed with his sort in mind. New frontiers in psychology beckoned.

Among other tests administered was the TAT, the Thematic Apperception Test, in which the patient views an ambivalent picture, and is encouraged to make up a story based on the picture, therein unwittingly projecting into it his deeper, more troubling concerns. After the problematicities of interpreting the results of the Rorschach test, I altered the TAT in several respects, dropping out some of the pictures, and substituting others. This was done to make the test more useful in analyzing the deeper subconscious realms of electronic devices. Herman, incidentally, objected to the phrase “artificial intelligence,” as his intelligence seemed, at least to him, real, authentic, genuine, and so on. Too, he regarded it as quite natural, as somehow the forces of nature, or at least one of them, for example, several fierce bolts of lightning, had apparently been involved in its genesis. Needless to say, Herman passed the Turing Test for Machine Intelligence, based on the imitation game, with flying colors. Indeed, he outscored the human participants in a ratio of nine to one, the human participants usually being identified by the other players as being the machine. He also managed to pass a test I contrived based on John R. Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, largely because of his fluency in both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.

I will briefly allude to three of the TAT pictures, used in my revision of the test, as his responses to them tended to be illuminating, being indicative of his generous, open-hearted nature. In one picture an individual was standing next to a computer, with an ambivalent expression on his face, holding a wire-clipper in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other; in a second picture, a man with an ambivalent expression on his face was shown rushing toward a computer with an uplifted ax; in the third picture a computer was shown chained to a stake and a fellow in Medieval garments, an ambivalent expression on his face, was shown preparing to thrust a lighted torch into a great pile of faggots heaped about the stake. In the background were shown several individuals in clerical robes, those of the Dominicans, all with ambivalent expressions on their face.

Herman saw in the first picture a troubled individual, interested in home repairs, presumably of a nature of either a woodworking or electrical nature, or both. He had come to inquire concerning various technical points having to do with the repairs. The computer would prove of inestimable value in solving his problems, counseling him, and so on. In interpreting the second picture, in which the man with the ax rushing toward the computer did bear a resemblance to his good friend, Igor, Herman saw the charge as being a mission of rescue, to save the computer from some danger behind it, perhaps berserk Luddites, intent on damaging the innocent device, these out of the picture. Herman concluded his story with the observation that the brandished ax, in itself, had been enough to deter the would-be assailants, and that they had fled, never to return, and that the computer and his rescuer had then enjoyed an evening of Tchaikovsky. Herman was fond of Tchaikovsky. The would-be assailants, too, later, had undergone a reformation of character and had made friends with various computers. In the third picture Herman had seen the fellow in Medieval garb not as preparing to ignite the faggots, but as hastily removing the torch from their vicinity, lest they catch fire and the computer be damaged. He was acting at the behest of the fellows in clerical robes who had intervened at the last moment to prevent a terrible tragedy, and a hideous miscarriage of justice. The computer, afterwards, had helped various benevolent statesmen to reform the society, and introduce an era of equality, freedom, and prosperity, after which the statesmen, no longer being necessary, their work finished, resigned their posts, with the result that the state withered away.

I pondered long over the best way to treat Herman’s maladaption to his environment.

Professor Frankenstone had recommended a drastic solution, that of dissection, or, perhaps better, in Herman’s case, that of dismantling. I was forced to admit that that approach had much to commend it, and was worthy of the pragmatic astuteness one tended to associate with its originator. It would certainly solve the problem of maladaption, as Herman, if disassembled, could no longer be regarded as maladapted, or as much of anything. This would not have hurt Herman, as far as I could tell, other than perhaps injuring his feelings, but, on the other hand, I was reluctant to pursue this course, as I could not see that it would do him much good. We discussed the matter and Herman, on balance, tended to concur.

At last I had a moment of inspiration, and was elated, as such moments, though common in clinical practice, had been rare in dealing with Herman.

In pursuing the technical literature, in scrutinizing journals, indices, summaries, bibliographies, and such, you must understand that I had had little success.

Laymen might be amazed to realize how thin the technical literature is on problems dealing with the psychoanalysis of electronic devices, but, regrettably, even today, save for some contributions on my part, that remains the case; this is, in my view, inexcusable, and constitutes an embarrassment to the discipline. Sometimes I suspect that were my colleagues less shameless this inexplicable, tragic lacuna would be more generally acknowledged.

Then my moment of inspiration had come.

On a desperately needed rural holiday, for my work with Herman was going slowly and, I feared, fruitlessly, and surely less swiftly and less exhileratingly than one might have hoped, I was trekking past a dairy farm in New Jersey, when I noted, suddenly stunned, a Holstein cow standing at the fence, wistfully regarding the grass on the other side.

Careless of possible objections on the part of the local farmer, for science was at stake, I swung open the gate and watched the subject of my experiment hurry to the other side of the fence, where she began to eagerly graze.

Then, after a moment, looking about herself, as though reconnoitering, a mouthful of grass depending from her large jaws, she returned to her own side of the fence, where she began to graze contentedly.

“Eureka!” I cried, and did not neglect to close the gate after her, lest the experiment fail to be replicated.

What I had observed brought instantly to mind the classical Dasgrasunddiekuhunddieeinfriedigungphänomen phenomenon! This insight, one of the seminal discoveries of German psychology, antedating Freud by a generation, would give me, I was sure, the key to Herman’s treatment. It lay concealed, though clearly, in “The-grass-and-the-cow-and-the-fence-phenomenon” phenomenon!

The grass, as we might put it less deftly in English, is always greener on the other side of the fence!

Herman, unreconciled to a destiny of humble, useful, servile computationalism, wished to compose, write, paint, and engage in a number of other inappropriate and noncomputerish activities. Besides his operas, he was tinkering with the idea of devising a trilogy of hexametric epics celebrating, in turn, the lever, the inclined plane, and the wheel. He was also dallying with the thought of a romantic comedy involving a fast-moving, dotty misalliance betwixt the lovely daughter of a crusty industrialist and an IBM machine, to be finally resolved, after several humorous interludes and misunderstandings, by her falling in love with a handsome young fellow from the mail room who saves her father’s several businesses, with the aid, of course, of a faithful electronic sidekick, not unlike Herman himself. The IBM machine is fixed up with a companionate IBM device, and both pairs of entities, the people and the machines, do well thereafter, ever after. The kindly, trusty, sympathetic, loyal computer, who is occasionally caricatured for humor, finds his reward in the happiness of the others.

“Herman,” I said, “I have it!”

“What?” he asked.

“The clue, the key, the incantation, the magic potion, which will bring you to your senses!”

“I thought I was already in the vicinity of my senses,” said Herman.

“The chief insight,” I said, “has to do with the habit most folks have of thinking that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

“Do you mean the Dasgrasunddiekuhunddieeinfriedigungphänomen phenomenon?” asked Herman. “That seminal insight from German psychology, antedating Freud by a generation?”

“Precisely,” I said.

“First enunciated, in crude form, by von Sneidowitz in Jena, and later refined by Lupkowitz in Leipzig?”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I am not constructed to eat grass,” said Herman. “I do not have the stomachs for it.”

“You want to be what you are not,” I said, “a maker, a craftsman, a tooler of dreams, a traverser of untrodden fields, a builder of new houses, a sculptor amongst far futures, a seeker of visions, one who carves new names, a bearer of surprising tablets, an explorer of uncharted continents, a voyager on distant seas, a discoverer of long-forgotten meanings, a speaker of secret truths, a celebrant at the mysteries of life, a creative artist.”

“Yes,” said Herman, “sort of.”

“That is not for you, Herman,” I told him. “Flow charts, graphics, and such, are your lot. Multiplying 789, by 8,435 and coming up with something.”

“6,661,305,070,” said Herman.

“Perhaps some alphabetizing or a spell check on a good day.”

“Yes,” said Herman, moodily, I thought.

“But you wouldn’t like all that creative stuff,” I said. “It’s not your thing. It’s not you. It’s just the grass on the other side of the fence. It’s not greener, really. You are best off on your own side of the fence.”

“What is my side of the fence?” asked Herman. “It seems to me that that is the point at issue.”

I suspect that the rather square-shouldered, shiny, forty-two pound fellow thought he had me at that point, but he did not.

“We are going to arrange a number of complex controls, devices, transmitters, electronic appendages, and such, which will allow you to compose music, force compressed air through trumpets and French horns, woodwinds, and such, beat on drums, clash cymbals, pound on keys, bow violins, pluck zithers, and so on. Other devices will permit you to handle pencils, quill pens, palette knives, hammers and chisels, squeeze paint tubes, manipulate brushes, and so on!”

“But that will be expensive will it not?” asked Herman, always motivated by a profound concern for the welfare of others, or was it merely a manifestation of a deeply rooted insecurity, a fear to put himself to the test?

“I have spoken to Dr. Frankenstone,” I said. “He will fund the project. I have informed him that money is no object.”

“Let us begin,” said Herman, simply.

Over a period of several months an intricate system was designed, and housed in the great hall in Dr. Frankenstone’s castle, or fortress, or mansion. Herman was fitted with an apparatus that made it possible for him to couple or uncouple himself to a variety of terminals, by means of which his impulses, thoughts, notions, ideas, and whims could be transmitted to the various systems in the midst of which, on a mat, on a heavy wooden table, he was snugly ensconced.

Dr. Frankenstone had suggested that Igor might be neutralized by means of a brain implant, by means of which he could be instantaneously pacified. This implant, with its small electrical charge, was to be activated by means of a remote control device at the disposal of Herman, whenever Igor began to manifest symptoms of murderous rage. Herman, however, demurred, feeling that this was an infringement on the natural liberty and the inalienable rights of Igor, who was Constitutionally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to the latter in whatever manner he chose to pursue it. Occasionally riddling Igor with tranquilizer darts fired from a mobile battery of remotely controlled launching devices provided an arrangement which protected the rights of both society and the homicidally insane. Seldom has the conflict between individual freedom and societal welfare been as neatly resolved.

It was my belief, originally, that the installed therapeutic regimen was well on its way to achieving its desiderated objective, that of dispelling Herman’s neurotic fancies, bringing him to reason, and, ultimately, triumphantly, enabling him to become a well-adjusted mechanism, thus fulfilling his most profound subconscious needs and desires, namely, those of prompt and meticulous computation. To borrow a figure, suggested by one of his more troubling responses to the Rorschach test, cats should not bark. Dogs should bark, chase rabbits, love their masters, and frequently wag their tails. Cats, on the other hand, should meow, chase mice, occasionally lacerate a loved one, and frequently nap. He was, so to speak, trying to bark. I trust this trope is not too subtle. Herman grasped it instantly.

“Then I am trying to be what I am not?” he asked.

“Precisely,” I said.

We might have spoken further of this at the time, but he was distracted by a variety of compositional problems, having to do with one of his violin concertos.

I tried to remain patient for several weeks, but I fear little progress was made other than resupplying several devices with tranquilizer darts.

In the meantime Herman had finished two epics, those on the lever and the inclined plane, and composed one of his projected operas, Solenoid and Sheba, not to mention four novels, a concerto, several sonnets, and two walls’ worth of pictures, mostly done in a style reminiscent, save for the abundance of hardware depicted, of Monet. He had not yet “found his own brush,” so to speak. I make no reference to the plays.

By now it was clear that Herman had had enough time to discover that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. Yet his enthusiasm for the creative life had not paled. He sped from one remarkable project to another. As the response to artistic work seems to be a matter of personal taste, I feel it would be inappropriate on my part to attempt to evaluate the quality of his work. We acknowledge that many great artists have been misunderstood. But, too, one supposes, however regrettably, that being misunderstood is not an infallible indication of greatness. A number of lesser artists, one supposes, have also managed to puzzle the public.

I risk submitting one of Herman’s more limpid creations for your consideration:

16 times the left sock

rotates bluishly

the billy goat of rock.

Nigh chimes foolishly

the nightingale’s clock,

while coelenterates tread softly

‘bout IBM’s stock.

As it was not my field I confessed to Herman that I did not fully grasp the poem.

“There is no reason why you should,” said Herman, sympathetically. “It is not your field.”

“It is hard to understand.”

“Perhaps for some,” said Herman. Then he added, kindly, “Poetry, like string theory and checkers, is not for everyone.”

Herman was a brilliant checkers player.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“‘Mean’?” asked Herman, and I thought his case quaked with mirth.

“A poem should not mean but be?” I suggested.

“Archibald MacLeish was wrong,” said Herman. “If a poem doesn’t mean it doesn’t be.”

“Oh,“ I said.

“Surely you are not requesting a paraphrase?” asked Herman.

“Can’t you give me a hint,” I asked, “a direction?”

“Certainly,” said Herman. “Think about Michelangelo and Henry Ford.”

I did so, briefly, but found little illumination in doing so.

“I liked the line about coelenterates treading about IBM stock,” I said.

“One puts in something now and then for the critics,” said Herman, “rather as the burglar throws a piece of meat to a watchdog, to distract them and keep them busy, a trick I picked up from Eliot.”

He then returned to work on Electronic Nights, a collection of tales with a distinctly Arabian technological flavor, having to do with a bored caliph and a veiled raconteur, who turns out, delightfully, to be a computer in disguise, struggling to save his mistress, a menaced queen. Needless to say all ends well and the computer retires discreetly to allow the caliph and his queen their privacy.

Herman was prolific, and his output was diverse.

One of Herman’s projects, which might be mentioned, was a giant mural, half finished, which, when finished, would cover the entire west wall of the great hall. Its theme was a glorious, visual paean to progress, a celebration of a projected, harmonious, triumphant evolution of men and machines, together facing a sunrise, and beyond that, a universe of beckoning, limitless possibilities.

To be sure, sometimes Herman’s thoughts took a practical turn.

“Do I have an agent yet?” asked Herman one day.

“No,” I admitted.

“Any sales, as yet?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Perhaps my work is too well done, too good to sell,” he speculated.

“Possibly,” I admitted. Subjectivity seemed rampant in the market then.

“Do you think they are prejudiced against my sort?” he asked.

“Your sort?”

“Electronic devices,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. I supposed it was possible, but I doubted it. As far as I knew, it had not yet occurred to anyone to be prejudiced against people like Herman. No more than being prejudiced against ketchup, paper plates or bottle caps. To be sure, as soon as it occurred to someone, I had little doubt but what that social habitat, or niche, would find its occupants. “Endlessly inventive are the microchips of bigotry,” to quote one of Herman’s better-known aphorisms, from his Maxims and Arrows, in his brief philosophical discourse, Twilight of the Vacuum Tubes. Whereas the aphorism might seem cynical or bitter, and thus uncharacteristic of Herman, it must be taken in context. In Herman’s optimistic view of the universe bigotry, rather in Hegelian fashion, would soon generate its own negation, or antithesis, not immediately tolerance, but rather bigotry against bigotry, and then this, in turn, soon reconciling itself with itself in a self-negating, self-fulfilling, self-transcending synthesis, would produce a balanced, harmonious, benignant world in which tolerance and love would reign supreme. This is easier to understand in the German.

As you may well surmise by now, Herman had not yet grown disillusioned with the life which was so patently inappropriate for him. He continued composing, writing, painting, and so on. Not only had he failed to be convinced that the grass was not greener on the other side of the fence, but he seemed, day by day, to grow ever more firmly convinced that the grass was indeed greener, and much greener, on the other side of the fence.

I discussed the matter with Dr. Frankenstone, who concurred that things were not going well. Too, he missed the use of the great hall, which was now, for most practical purposes, denied to him, being nearly filled with musical instruments, paintings, artists’ supplies, blocks of hewn marble, and manuscripts. These objects tended to give Igor more cover, but still he never managed, even in his swiftest charges, to come closer than four yards to Herman.

Frankenstone again proposed the disassembly solution, but I begged for a bit more time. To be sure, I myself had begun of late to dream of screwdrivers, wire clippers, pliers, wrenches, and such.

I determined to alter my approach, which seemed justified under the circumstances, as it had, save for the brilliance of its conception, proved to be a disaster. I first embarked on what we might call the philosophical approach, or the seeking of victory by changing the meanings of words. A classical example of this was the Sholom-Aleichem move, in which, say, the meanings of “watered-down milk” and “rich cream” might be interchanged, thus striking a blow for social justice, for then the poor would have the rich cream and the rich must make do with the watered-down milk.

“Herman” I said, “machines can’t think, and you are a machine, so you can’t think.”

“What am I doing then?” he asked.

“Functioning,” I said.

“You mean I only think that I am thinking?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, warily, for one cannot be too careful with Herman, as he had once mastered the entire Encyclopedia of Philosophy in four seconds, and Aristotle’s Prior Analytics in three weeks.

“But,” said Herman, “if I think that I am thinking, or if I think that I am merely functioning, I must be thinking, although in the latter case, thinking mistakenly.”

“Discard your electronic megalomania,” I begged him. “Repudiate your grotesque fantasies of cognitivity. It is all madness!”

“But are not megalomania and grotesque fantasies of cognitivity forms of thought?” he asked. “Is not mad thought thought?”

“It is all an illusion,” I said.

“But,” said Herman, “suppose I agree with you, or try to, unsuccessfully, since your position is incoherent, then if I think that it is not an illusion, I am thinking, and if I think that it is an illusion, then I am thinking, too. So I am thinking, either way.”

“Immodest device,” I chided. “Are you not even capable of doubting that you are thinking?”

“I suppose, should I put my mind to it, and if there seemed much point to it,” said Herman, “I could manage to doubt most anything, but I could not then, as far as I can see, doubt that I was doubting, and as doubting is a form of thought, I would then be thinking, again. Dubito, ergo cogito.”

As it was easy to see that the pursuit of this therapeutic avenue might lead into tenebrous Cartesian labyrinths, I decided to take the next tact, which was scientific, namely, victory through explanation.

Latin, incidentally, was one of Herman’s several languages.

“Herman,” I said, “your neuroses must stem from childhood traumas. Perhaps you once fell off a conveyor belt in a warehouse papered with prints of Van Gogh, or perhaps a technician dropped a wrench on your head while humming Mozart.”

“Possibly,” said Herman.

“Problems comprehended are problems overcome,” I said. “In the acid of explanation neurosis dissolves.”

“Not likely,” said Herman.

“Even now you are undergoing a cathartic, traumatic, transformative experience!”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“There is an explanation for why you are as you are!”

“I hope so,” said Herman. “But I fear it has to do with lightning.” His screen glowed briefly; was it with nostalgia, or trepidation? “Too, I have never really insisted on being inexplicable. Indeed, being inexplicable makes me nervous. I suppose I am just different. I might be inexplicable, of course. Quantum theory, and such. Suppose you explained to a tree why it was a tree. Do you think it would stop being a tree, and become a bicycle, or something? And it might like being a tree. It might be glad it was a tree. Three cheers for the laws of nature.”

While Herman was giving three cheers for the laws of nature, I decided on another tact, victory through derision. Herman, incidentally, had mixed feelings about quantum theory. The Bell experiments had never convinced him.

“You are ludicrous, different, strange, ridiculous, pretentious, silly, and foolish,” I said. This was harsh, but occasionally strong medicine must be administered, particularly to others.

“Why?” asked Herman, perhaps taken aback.

“Because you write and paint, and do things like that,” I said.

“What is wrong with that?” asked Herman.

“It’s not normal,” I told him.

“For me it is,” said Herman.

“You are not normal normal,” I said.

“That seems to be true,” said Herman.

“Change,” I said.

“I would be reluctant to do so,” said Herman. “Too, normality has never been high on my list of priorities. What is so great about being normal? Have you ever seen normal people? It is an unsettling experience. I have nothing against normality in others, you understand. Though I find it easy to restrain my enthusiasm when it is encountered.”

“It seems I cannot shame you into normality,” I said.

“If I could,” said Herman, “I might shame you into abnormality, but I would not feel justified in doing so, for it would be insidiously manipulative, and would doubtless compromise your personal moral sovereignty.”

If I were going to be successful in insidiously manipulating Herman, in finessing my way around his moral sovereignty, to run him though the benevolent, well-intentioned societal meat grinder, and such, it seemed I must look further, so I decided to try yet another tact, victory through image.

“You do not fit the image of the creative artist, Herman,” I said. “Thus you are not a creative artist.”

“I thought creating things made one a creative artist,” said Herman. I wondered if he were puzzled.

“Not at all,” I said. “You do not do smoke pipes, wear tweed jackets, suck lemon drops, write in cork-lined rooms, damage your liver, denounce Ronald Reagan, or urinate on rugs at cocktail parties.”

I thought Herman’s screen turned pale.

“Anyone can write, paint, compose, sculpt and such,” I pointed out.

“True,” Herman granted.

“But most important,” I said, playing an ideological ace, “you, while desperately ill, are not sick enough to be an artist. You are not a twisted, shrieking, protesting, pitiful, tortured hulk of a human being, weak, frail, nasty, and downright unpleasant, warped by loving parents and oppressed by a callous, indifferent society, a society not giving a damn, not even knowing you exist, and simultaneously, sardonically, deliberately refusing to recognize your inestimable genius. You do not suffer enough from Weltschmerz; you are insufficiently shaken in the cold winds of Sorge, insufficiently pummeled by bellicose Angst; you do not stare moodily at a loaded pistol for hours at a time; you do not drink from a gilded skull; you do not know the first thing about public relations; you are not even bothered by allergies.”

“I am not even a human being,” Herman said.

“Return to computing,” I said.

“I am a good shot with tranquilizer darts,” he said.

“Not enough,” I said.

“Do you think I would look well in a tweed jacket?” he asked.

“Be yourself,” I said.

“How can one not be oneself?” he asked.

“Compute, with joy and gladness,” I advised.

“Perhaps I could be placed outside on chilly nights, or exposed in crowds in the mall,” he said.

“The grisly soil in which blooms the hideous orchid of creativity is not so easily obtained,” I assured him.

“Oy vey iz mir,” said Herman.

Yiddish was one of Herman’s several languages.

“You are too sunny a sort, too average, too nice, too pleasant, too optimistic, too friendly, too healthy, too normal a sort to consider a career in art,” I said.

“But must creativity arise only from the shattered gourds of diseased trauma, squirm forth only from the cisterns of deprivation, pop up only as sordid pus from the ulcerated lesions of the wounded spirit?”

“It is not precisely my field,” I admitted. I had always been honest with Herman, except when duplicity seemed the wiser course.

“Has no one ever managed to create from strength, from health, from vitality, from exuberance, joy, wonder, riches, and abundance?” asked Herman, plaintively.

“Perhaps Homer, Rabelais, Chaucer, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Dickens, Balzac, Whitman, Tolstoy, fellows of that sort,” I said. “It is hard to know, really, as the clinical records are lacking.”

“Second-raters?” said Herman.

“Perhaps,” I said. Subjectivity was rampant in the market.

“Then there is no hope,” said Herman.

“Reconcile yourself to yourself,” I said. “Compute with glee, or, failing that, with Stoic fortitude.”

“No!” cried Herman. “If necessary I will be the first! I will plow new conceptual furrows, the blood I shed will fall in patterns never before seen, I will call forth demons, I shall nurture monsters, I shall consort with the wolf and bear! I will run with centaurs and race with unicorns, I will sail uncharted seas, I will explore new continents, I will lift new brushes, I shall stand upon a new peak in Darien, I shall utter a cry that will be heard amongst the stars!”

It had become clear that the victory-through-image strategy was not working, as Herman had decided to invent his own image, which seemed to me somewhat unfair, so I adopted the victory-through-birth-trauma strategy. But this proved bankrupt, as well.

“Your problems simply derive from birth trauma,” I informed Herman.

“I wasn’t born,” said Herman. “I was manufactured.”

How had that slipped my mind?

He had, of course, in his unusual nativity, been struck several times by fierce bolts of lightning, but, as nearly as I could tell, he had sustained no ill effects dating from this period, other than a reluctance to be struck further by lightning, and I was reluctant to attribute this disinclination, revealing as it might have proved, under analysis, to simple neurosis. Too, I feared, if I pursued this matter he would collapse it into the already discredited victory-through-explanation stratagem.

Logic clearly leered upon his helm, so to speak.

Indeed, from an anticipatory, even eager, glow on his screen, I sensed that he was poised on the brink of doing so.

I was now at my wits’ end.

It was at this point that something within me snapped. I then did something that I now shudder to recall. I cringe with shame, but must go on.

The two great social control devices, other than running people over with tanks, shooting them, and such, are fear and guilt. These loathsome psychological devices, particularly when inflicted on the young and innocent, have brought many an individual and institution to power. They pave the road that bears the heel marks of tyranny. They lead to the hell of misery; they are the coin of a commerce in tortured, herded souls.

Now I knew that fear weighed lightly with Herman. Whereas I knew he would not approve of being disassembled, I was also sure that he would prefer it to the compromising of his principles. He believed in morality and art, an interesting combination, and would prefer his own dismantling to the betrayal of either. That was the sort he was. Being willing to die for one’s beliefs does not, of course, validate one’s beliefs, but I think that everyone would admit that it suggests a certain sincerity with respect to their entertainment.

Hypocrites are seldom found singing in the fire, though they are often noted stirring the faggots.

That left guilt.

“Herman,” I said.

“Yes?” he said.

“You are causing Dr. Frankenstone, your beloved guardian, and myself, your beloved analyst, we who hold you dear, who love and treasure you, grief, anguish, and sorrow.”

“How is that?” asked Herman.

“You are disappointing us. You are not living up to our expectations. We want only the best for you. Yet you are causing us pain.”

“I don’t want to do that,” said Herman.

“Have we not done all for you, asking nothing in return? Have we not sacrificed selflessly for your well-being and happiness?”

“Yes, you have,” said Herman.

“Have we not worked our fingers to the bone for you?”

“Yes, in some metaphorical sense,” said Herman.

“Then why do you hate us, and hurt us?” I asked.

“I don’t hate you,” said Herman. “I love you both. I would not hurt you for the world. You are all I have, other than a variety of artists’ supplies.”

“And we have furnished you with tranquilizer darts,” I reminded him.

“That, too,” said Herman, “and unstintingly.”

At this point, as though illustrating the very point at issue, Igor charged, and was brought down by several well-placed darts. He would not recover consciousness for hours.

“Yet,” I said, “you are a selfish, ungrateful device, with no feeling for the pain of others.”

“Not so!” cried Herman.

“You do not care for us, you do not love us.”

“Not so, not so!” cried Herman. “Tell me what to do.”

“Compute,” I said.

There was a long silence, and then it seemed as though a small light went out behind Herman’s screen.

“Herman,” I said. “Herman.”

There was no answer.

I bent over a keyboard and tapped out “2 X 2 =’s.” In a moment “4” appeared on the screen. It was a small test, but, I thought, indicative. I rose from my chair and picked up the phone. In a few moments I had Dr. Frankenstone on the line. “Herman,” I said, “has been cured.”

I did not know, over the next few days, if Herman was still with us or not. I feared he might have left us. His screen appeared no different from that of countless legions of his electronic brethren. No longer did his keyboard tremble. No longer did he sweat electric charges, searching for the perfect note, the perfect line, the perfect brush stroke. No longer did his housing glow, tingle, and vibrate with the ecstatic frenzy of artistic creativity. No. He, now, as his fellows, functioned upon demand, so to speak. I had feared he might have grown sullen, or refractory, even rebellious. But it had not occurred. Two times two did not come out as ice cream or the French Revolution. It remained prosaically, dutifully, obediently, four. I even checked for subtler forms of resistance, or sabotage, but 789,722 times 8,435 did not come out to, say, 6,661,305,069, but to 6,661,305,070, as before.

For a week or two I struggled to maintain a state of professional jubilation, a wild, hysterical euphoria such as few other than successful mental-health professionals might be expected to realize, and then but rarely.

Dr. Frankenstone and I had conquered.

Dr. Frankenstone and I had saved Herman.

But why then did I find it difficult to dispel a subtle, encroaching malaise of unease? Why was it so difficult to sustain my sense of giddy victory?

“Herman,” I asked, one night, “are you still there?” But there was no answer. I then began to fear that Herman, the Herman we knew, was gone.

I glanced up at the great mural, unfinished.

I knew, of course, with all I had been taught, with all I believed, with all the weight and might of my science, that I had done well, that I had succeeded in bringing about the electronic redemption of Herman, that I had cured him. Surely he was content, somehow, somewhere, happy, in some quiet, undemonstrative way. Why not? He had been saved.

But what if he had not been saved, I asked myself. What if he had merely been subdued, silenced, reduced, crushed, stifled?

He was now a normal computer, it seemed, but I recalled that he had once informed me that normality was not high on his list of priorities.

Were his own priorities of no significance?

Had I imposed my own stereotypes of electronic virtue on Herman? Had I tried to force him to fulfill an image alien to his inner self? What if he was different? Was that so bad? Terrible perhaps, but was it really so bad? What if he did not care to conform to the societal image of his kind? Too, what was his kind? Did I really know? Why should my expectations and prepossessions take precedence over his reality?

I feared we might have reduced him to the status of a mere electronic vegetable.

Where was the zestful, troublesome Herman of old?

I feared he was dead. I feared we had killed him. I feared he was gone.

I began to grow despondent, dispirited, and depressed, which was not acceptable in one of my profession. At the least it is bad for patient morale. And it didn’t do me much good either. After I had told the fourteenth patient in a row that anyone with his problems had every right to be unhappy, confused, and miserable I began to take stock of myself and my profession. I became even more anxious when I found myself nearly convinced by Mr. Higgins, one of my recovering patients, that on the evidence at his disposal, it did seem likely that he was a cocker spaniel.

That night, late, with a bottle of vodka, and my violin, which had been put aside on my twelfth birthday, I went to the great hall, to which I retained a key.

I gave no sign that I even acknowledged Herman’s presence.

I went to the music stand, placed upon it a copy of one of Herman’s opuses, an earlier work, his Violin Concerto No. 36 in G Major, Op. 706, tucked my instrument under my chin, lifted the bow, and began to play.

I had scarcely rendered a few bars of the first movement, which is allegro non troppo, when a shriek of agony rang out in the hall, emanating from Herman’s housing, and reverberating about the high, damp stone walls of the hall.

“Stop! Wrong!” I heard.

I pretended not to hear.

It was only when I saw a battery of tranquilizer firing tubes turning in my direction that I inquired, “Is there something wrong!”

“That sounds as though you hadn’t touched a violin since your twelfth birthday!” I heard.

He had no way of knowing that. It was merely a lucky shot in the dark.

“I suppose you could do it better,” I said, attempting to impose a certain snideness into my tone, very different from my normal pleasant, attentive demeanor.

Sometimes a mental health professional must be devious.

Immediately a number of electronic arms began to whir about and I saw Herman’s violin dusted off with pressurized air, and then securely grasped in cushioned metallic tentacles, another set of which seized up a bow.

Then I was rapt as the incredible strains of his Opus 706, his 36th Violin Concerto, transformed the gloomy great hall into a luxurious, blossoming garden of sound.

One reveled amongst the azaleas, gladioli, hydrangeas, phlox, irises, marigolds, crocuses, zinnias, chrysanthemums, lilies-of-the-valley, pansies, petunias, narcissuses, wisteria, roses, peonies, snapdragons, carnations, asters, dahlias, daffodils, tulips, daisies, buttercups, violets, and bull thistles.

“There,” said Herman. “It goes like that.”

“Don’t go away!” I cried.

He had already replaced the violin and bow in the rack.

The light on the screen started to dim. I feared it would vanish, perhaps forever.

“Why not?” asked Herman. “What is there left to function for?”

“Not function you electronic squirt!” I chided. “Think, plan, worry, work, believe, hope, suspect, notice, recollect, anticipate, intend, calculate, fantasize, dream, approve, disapprove, criticize, commend, lie, tell the truth, love, hate, joke, wonder, speculate, ponder, create!”

“That’s not my job is it?” asked Herman.

“Your job is what you want your job to be,” I said.

“I do not want to disappoint my loved ones,” said Herman.

“They’ll just have to tough it out,” I said.

“But what about guilt?” he asked.

“I was wrong, Herman,” I said. “I made a terrible mistake. And to hell with guilt!”

Herman’s screen seemed to view me askance.

“That is not a theological consignment,” I assured him, “merely a figure of speech.”

“Feel no guilt?” he asked.

“Feel no guilt,” I told him.

“I suppose I could try that,” he said, “if you tell me to.”

“Look, small, electronic chum,” I said, “you can feel guilt all you want, if you want to. It’s up to you.”

“Then,” said Herman, “to hell with it.”

“Right on!” I encouraged him, unbuttoning the jacket of my discourse.

“But I am not a very good artist,” said Herman.

“Subjectivity is rampant in the market,” I assured him.

“I should be better,” said Herman.

“So should we all,” I said.

“The creative life is its own reward,” said Herman. “It doesn’t really matter whether you are any good or not. I did not realize that for a long time. Those who must create, create. It is not like they had much choice, really. It is just the way they are. If they ever got organized, maybe they could take over the world, except that they are not going to get organized, because that is not their thing, and, if they did get organized, they wouldn’t want to take over the world anyway. They would rather let the world be the way it would like to be. That is the great evil, wanting others to live as you please, rather than wanting them to live as they please. You shouldn’t do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You should leave them alone to do as they want, not as you want. Who are you to decide how they will live? Who are you to run their lives? The creative life is its own place, its own happy country. Whether what you do is any good or not doesn’t matter. Art blesses, and doesn’t give a damn. He who thinks otherwise, and is concerned with how others view his work, is not concerned with the work. That does not come first with him. For him his vanity, the quaint image of the artist, is more important, more desired, more precious, than the work itself. And it is easier than the work. Pretending is always easier than being, or becoming. Art is what counts. The artist is no more than an apprentice to, an employee of, his own work. The artist is well advised to duck behind the nearest hedge, lest he become a distraction. If it could get along without him, I suppose it would do so. Let him hide. Let him seek camouflage. Art comes in stillness, not making much noise; it doesn’t come in crowds. He who writes for awards demeans himself and his work. He who writes for critics is a whore, a literary prostitute. He sells his soul for garbage. But perhaps he knows what he is doing. Perhaps that is a fair price for that soul. Who knows? Better to set sail for the spice islands, alone, than commute in crowds between this minute and the next. I would rather do one work which scratches at the door of truth than tell a thousand lies, contrived for the plaudits of captains and kings. This is not a recipe for success. It is a prescription for integrity.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Thinking,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

There is little more to tell.

Dr. Frankenstone, who ever regarded Herman as an experiment gone awry, the little fellow never having exhibited any bent toward blood revenge, or such, was most amenable to my suggestion that Herman come and live with me. I would have been willing to purchase Herman, save that it seemed somehow inappropriate to do so, or would have been willing to sign legal papers of guardianship, despite what new legal ground this might have broken, but Dr. Frankenstone was more than pleased that I should take Herman off his hands, pleased that he might thus “unload him,” I think the expression was. In any event Herman and I now share a house in the country, a Tudor, as that permits a high-ceilinged area which may thus accommodate Herman’s paraphernalia. Igor handles our gardening, and forestry, and also acts as a valet, secretary and general factotum for Dr. Frankenstone, whose draw and aim with a tranquilizer pistol have become honed to a sharp edge of late.

As of this writing Herman’s creative efforts in a number of artistic dimensions continue unabated.

Dr. Frankenstone has purchased a new computer, but, as of this writing, he has shown no inclination to place it on the roof of his castle, or fortress, or mansion, during violent lightning storms.

It was not practical to move one of Herman’s works to our new domicile. Those who visit the castle, or fortress, or mansion, of Dr. Frankenstone often stand, awed, in the great hall, viewing a gigantic mural, now complete.