's it. Now another."

"In pretty bad shape, isn't he?"

Nurse Peters turned to look at the man who had walked up behind her. It
was Dr. Benwick, the new interne.

"He's worthless to himself and anyone else," she said. "It's a shame,
too; he'd be rather nice looking if there were any personality behind
that face." She shoveled another spoonful of mashed asparagus into the
gaping mouth. "Now swallow it, Paul."

"How long has he been here?" Benwick asked, eyeing the scars that showed
through the dark hair on the patient's head.

"Nearly six years," Miss Peters said.

"Hmmh! But they outlawed lobotomies back in the sixties."

"Open your mouth, Paul." Then, to Benwick: "This was an accident. Bullet
in the head. You can see the scar on the other side of his head."

* * * * *

The doctor moved around to look at the left temple. "Doesn't leave much
of a human being, does it?"

"It doesn't even leave much of an animal," Miss Peters said. "He's
alive, but that's the best you can say for him. (Now swallow, Paul.
That's it.) Even an ameba can find food for itself."

"Yeah. Even a single cell is better off than he is. Chop out a man's
forebrain and he's nothing. It's a case of the whole being _less_ than
the sum of its parts."

"I'm glad they outlawed the operation on mental patients," Miss Peters
said, with a note of disgust in her voice.

Dr. Benwick said: "It's worse than it looks. Do you know why the
anti-lobotomists managed to get the bill passed?"

"Let's drink some milk now, Paul. No, Doctor; I was only a little girl
at that time."

"It was a matter of electro-encephalographic records. They showed that
there was electrical activity in the prefrontal lobes even after the
nerves had been severed, which could mean a lot of things; but the A-L
supporters said that it indicated that the forebrain was still capable
of thinking."

Miss Peters looked a little ill. "Why--that's _horrible_! I wish you'd
never told me." She looked at the lump of vegetablized human sitting
placidly at the table. "Do you suppose he's actually _thinking_,
somewhere, deep inside?"

"Oh, I doubt it," Benwick said hastily. "There's probably no real
self-awareness, none at all. There couldn't be."

"I suppose not," Miss Peters said, "but it's not pleasant to think of."

"That's why they outlawed it," said Benwick.

RONDO--ANDANTE MA NON POCO

Insanity is a retreat from reality, an escape within the mi