“But I could throw the paper clip away,” he thought. Why should I hesitate to save it? And is this a function of advertising; and, if so, of what is advertising a function?
“For in what way is the paper clip on the letter I’ve received different from those in the box? Now,” he thought, “now: if I were the sort of man, or, barring and not going to that length, if I possessed,” he thought, “the habit”—he grinned—“of keeping the paper clips in the box in which they arrived—and why should I not, as it’s an attractive box (and, finally, the question is one of utility, which is to say, a man’s self-understanding of the world)—
“Many would keep them in the box in which they came; and it is, arguably, defensibly (as if I required a defense) more prudent to do so. But, on the other hand, the box, over time, will wear down through my opening and closing it. And I assert—as if there were need of an assertion, and as if mere preference or habit (as I said before)—absent a conscious preference—did not suffice—
“If I kept, as I say, the paper clips in the cardboard box, would it not, arguably, conduce more toward the waste of those clips I receive on the mail I receive?
“Would it not, perhaps minimally but nevertheless, conduce to their waste, as one would then be less inclined to remove and to put them into a box full of—well, get on with it [he thought]—those which they did not match?”
And here he relaxed; his inchoate, unacknowledged thought: “There, I’ve said it.
“How far we come from ourselves,” he thought.
“In the purchase of a receptacle for the clips I supply the impetus for their reuse. I decrease waste. I increase the beauty of my desk—but in truth, in all truth and finally, I do it, all of it, because I want to, and for no reason other or apart from that. And I may say ‘it suits me,’ or, ‘it suits my sense of fitness’, or, ‘I find it pleasant,’ or I may retreat one step and refer to the utility—for which I care not at all; not at all; not one jot—of the box.
“For, yes, small habits are the foundations of large; and, yes, in a business with small margin the least savings not only aggregate but … but, one may say, the least savings are the only savings. What is there but the ‘least savings’?
“How often do we move house, purchase new machinery, or strike new contracts with our suppliers or with our help?
“No. No. Those things which we call ‘small’ and those which we call ‘large’ are, if we—”
Here he was interrupted, as the girl came in.
She showed him her time card, and he took the black box out and paid her, and she went away.
“Now,” he thought, “I have bent the paper clip into a shape. I did it semi-consciously, because, I assume, the action itself was pleasing. And, having begun, I continued.
“Now it is useless. I have fashioned it into nothing at all.”
“You went,” the prosecutor said.
“You went,” he said, “you went down to the basement. Following the girl, you called to her to turn, on some excuse—no doubt having to do with her pay. For she had rebuffed you—had she not? She had rebuffed you—how many times? And she had learned to shun you. And yet you called out, and she turned. And you pushed her down the stairs.” He paused. “And ravaged her.” He paused again, and shook his head, slowly. He cleared his throat. “And ravaged her. And beat her. And you took her life.”
Frank looked up at the corner of the room.