The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl, C. M. Kornbluth Read Free Book Online Page B

poetry?"
    "My God, of course not! Who can?"
    "I don't mean the contemporary stuff; you're quite right about that. I mean Keats, Swinburne, Wylie—the great lyricists."
    "I used to," he cautiously admitted. "What about it?"
    "I'm going to ask you to spend the morning and afternoon with one of the world's great lyric poets: a girl named Tildy Mathis. She doesn't know that she's a poet; she thinks she's a boss copywriter. Don't enlighten her. It might make her unhappy.
    'Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time—'
    That's the sort of thing she would have written before the rise of advertising. The correlation is perfectly clear. Advertising up, lyric poetry down. There are only so many people capable of putting together words that stir and move and sing. When it became possible to earn a very good living in advertising by exercising this capability, lyric poetry was left to untalented screwballs who had to shriek for attention and compete by eccentricity."
    "Why are you telling me all this?" he asked.
    "I said you're on the inside, Jack. There's a responsibility that goes with the power. Here in this profession we reach into the souls of men and women. We do it by taking talent and—redirecting it. Nobody should play with lives the way we do unless he's motivated by the highest ideals."
    "I get you," he said softly. "Don't worry about my motives. I'm not in this thing for money or fame. I'm in it so the human race can have some elbow room and dignity again."
    "That's it," I said, putting on Expression Number One. But inwardly I was startled. The "highest ideal" I had been about to cite was Sales.
    I buzzed for Tildy. "Talk to her," I said. "Answer her questions. Ask her some. Make it a long, friendly chat. Make her share your experiences. And, without knowing it, she'll write lyric fragments of your experiences that will go right to the hearts and souls of the readers. Don't hold out on her."
    "Certainly not. Uh, Mitch, will she hold out on me?"
    The expression on his face was from a Tanagra figurine of a hopeful young satyr.
    "She won't," I promised solemnly. Everybody knew about Tildy.
    That afternoon, for the first time in four months, Kathy called me.
    "Is anything wrong?" I asked sharply. "Anything I can do?"
    She giggled. "Nothing wrong, Mitch. I just wanted to say hello and tell you thanks for a lovely evening."
    "How about another one?" I asked promptly.
    "Dinner at my place tonight suit you?"
    "It certainly does. It certainly, certainly does. What color dress will you be wearing? I'm going to buy you a real flower!"
    "Oh, Mitch, you needn't be extravagant. We aren't courting and I already know you have more money than God. But there is something I wish you'd bring."
    "Only name it."
    "Jack O'Shea. Can you manage it? I saw by the 'cast that he came into town this morning and I suppose he's working with you."
    Very dampened, I said: "Yes, he is. I'll check with him and call you back. You at the hospital?"
    "Yes. And thanks so much for trying. I'd love to meet him."
    I got in touch with O'Shea in Tildy's office. "You booked up for tonight?" I asked.
    "Hmmm ...I could be," he said. O'Shea was evidently learning about Tildy too.
    "Here's my proposition. Quiet dinner at home with my wife and me. She happens to be beautiful and a good cook and a first-rate surgeon and excellent company."
     
    "You're on."
    So I called Kathy back and told her I'd bring the social lion about seven.
    He stalked into my office at six, grumbling: "I'd better get a good meal out of this, Mitch. Your Miss Mathis appeals to me. What a dope! Does she have sense enough to come in out of the smog?"
    "I don't believe so," I said. "But Keats was properly hooked by a designing wench, and Byron didn't have sense enough to stay out of the venereal ward. Swinburne made a tragic mess out of his life. Do I have to go on?"
    "Please, no. What kind of marriage have you got?"
    "Interlocutory," I said, a little painfully