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We are all trying. Sometimes of course we don't succeed." His voice trailed off thin and tenuous. He put a hand to his forehead. "To adjust the state -- simply a tool -- to the needs of each individual citizen." His voice boomed out so unexpectedly deep and loud that Carl started. "That is the only function of the state as we see it. Our knowledge... incomplete, of course," he made a slight gesture of depreciation.... "For example... for example... take the matter of uh sexual deviation." The doctor rocked back and forth in his chair. His glasses slid down onto his nose. Carl felt suddenly uncomfortable. "We regard it as a misfortune... a sickness... certainly nothing to be censored or uh sanctioned any more than say... tuberculosis.... Yes," he repeated firmly as if Carl had raised an objection.... "Tubercu- losis. On the other hand you can readily see that any illness imposes certain, should we say obligations, cer- tain necessities of a prophylactic nature on the authori- ties concerned with public health, such necessities to be imposed, needless to say, with a minimum of incon- venience and hardship to the unfortunate individual who has, through no fault of his own, become uh in- fected.... That is to say, of course, the minimum hardship compatible with adequate protection of other individuals who are not so infected.... We do not find obligatory vaccination for smallpox an unreasonable measure.... Nor isolation for certain contagious dis- eases.... I am sure you will agree that individuals infected with hurumph what the French call 'Les Maladies galantes' heh heh heh should be compelled to undergo treatment if they do not report voluntarily." The doctor went on chuckling and rocking in his chair like a mechanical toy.... Carl realized that he was expected to say something. "That seems reasonable," he said. The doctor stopped chuckling. He was suddenly mo- tionless. "Now to get back to this uh matter of sexual deviation. Frankly we don't pretend to understand -- at least not completely -- why some men and women prefer the uh sexual company of their own sex. We do know that the uh phenomena is common enough, and, under certain circumstances a matter of uh concern to this department." For the first time the doctor's eyes flickered across Carl's face. Eyes without a trace of warmth or hate or any emotion that Carl had ever experienced in himsef or seen in another, at once cold and intense, predatory and impersonal. |
