I don't know. You used to be a good, dependable man—ordinary, not too bright maybe, but honest—and who knows what you done to yourself to get so smart all of a sudden. Like everybody's been saying—it ain't right."
"But what's wrong with a person wanting to be more intelligent, to acquire knowledge, and understand himself and the world?"
"If you'd read your Bible, Charlie, you'd know that it's not meant for man to know more than was given to him to know by the Lord in the first place. The fruit of that tree was forbidden to man.
Charlie, if you done anything you wasn't supposed to—you know, like with the devil or something—maybe it ain't too late to get out of it.
Maybe you could go back to being the good simple man you was before."
"There's no going back, Fanny.
I haven't done anything wrong.
I'm like a man born blind who has been given a chance to see light.
That can't be sinful.
Soon there'll be millions like me all over the world.
Science can do it, Fanny."
She stared down at the bride and groom on the wedding cake she was decorating and I could see her lips barely move as she whispered:
"It was evil when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. It was evil when they saw they was naked, and learned about lust and shame.
And they was driven out of Paradise and the gates was closed to them.
If not for that none of us would have to grow old and be sick and the."
There was nothing more to say, to her or to the rest of them.
None of them would look into my eyes. I can still feel the hostility.
Before, they had laughed at me, despising me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hated me for my knowledge and understanding.
Why? "What in God's name did they want of me?
This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I knew and loved, driven me out of the bakery.
Now, I'm more alone than ever before.
I wonder what would happen if they put Algernon back in the big cage with some of the other mice.
Would they turn against him?
May 25
So this is how a person can come to despise himself—knowing he's doing the wrong thing and not being able to stop.
Against my will I found myself drawn to Alice's apartment.
She was surprised but she let me in.
"You're soaked.
The water is streaming down your face."
"It's raining.
Good for the flowers."
"Come on in.
Let me get you a towel. You'll catch pneumonia."
"You're the only one I can talk to," I said.
"Let me stay."
"I've got a pot of fresh coffee on the stove. Go ahead and dry yourself and then we can talk"
I looked around while she went to get the coffee. It was the first time I had ever been inside her apartment.
I felt a sense of pleasure, but there was something disturbing about the room.
Everything was neat.
The porcelain figurines were in a straight line on the window-ledge, all facing the same way.
And the throw-pillows on the sofa hadn't been thrown at all, but were regularly spaced on the clear plastic covers that protected the upholstery.
Two of the end tables had magazines, neatly stacked so that the titles were clearly visible. On one table: The Reporter, The Saturday Review, The New Yorker; on the other: Mademoiselle, House Beautiful, and Reader's Digest.
On the far wall, across from the sofa, hung an ornately framed reproduction of Picasso's
"Mother and Child," and directly opposite, above the sofa, was a painting of a dashing Renaissance courtier, masked, sword in hand, protecting a frightened, pink-cheeked maiden. Taken all together, it was wrong. As if Alice couldn't make up her mind who she was and which world she wanted to live in.
"You haven't been to the lab for a few days," she called from the kitchen.
"Professor Nemur is worried about you."
"I couldn't face them," I said.
"I know there's no reason for me to be ashamed, but it's an empty feeling not going in to work every day—not seeing the shop, the ovens, the people. It's too much. Last night and the night before, I had nightmares of drowning."
She set the tray in the center of the coffee table—the napkins folded into triangles, and the cookies laid out in a circular display pattern.
"You mustn't take it so hard, Charlie.