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 himself or seen in another, at once cold and intense, predatory and impersonal. Carl suddenly felt trapped in this silent underwater cave of a room, cut off from all sources of warmth and certainty. His picture of himself sitting there calm, alert with a trace of well mannered contempt went dim, as if vitality were draining out of him to mix with the milky grey medium of the room.
“Treatment of these disorders is, at the present time, hurmph symptomatic.” The doctor suddenly threw himself back in his chair and burst into peals of metallic laughter. Carl watched him appalled. . . “The man is insane,” he thought. The doctor’s face went blank as a gambler’s. Carl felt an odd sensation in his stomach like the suddend stopping of an elevator.
The doctor was studying the file in front of him. He spoke in a tone of slightly condescending amusement: “Don’t look so frightened, young man. Just a professional joke. To say treatment is symptomatic means there is none, except to make the patient feel as comfortable as possible. And that is precisely what we attempt to do in these cases.” Once again Carl felt the impact of that cold interest on his face. “That is to say reassurance when reassurance is necessary. . .and, of course, suitable outlets with other individuals of similar tendencies. No isolation is indicated. . . the condition is no more directly contagious than cancer. Cancer, my