lab.

That night Pascal successfully washed and dried the dishes, cracking
only one cup in the process. Corinne spent the rest of the evening
sitting in the far corner of the living room, thumbing the pages of a
magazine.

On the following afternoon--prompted perhaps by that perverse female
trait which demands completion of all projects once started--Corinne
lingered for several minutes in the vegetable department at the grocery.
She finally picked out a fresh, round and blushing pumpkin.

Later in her kitchen, humming a little tune under her breath, Corinne
deftly maneuvered a paring knife to transform the pumpkin into a very
reasonable facsimile of a man's head. She placed the pumpkin over the
tiny shaft between Pascal's box-shaped shoulders and stepped back.

She smiled at the moon-faced idiot grinning back at her. He was
complete, and not bad-looking! But just before she touched the red
button once and the blue button twice--which sent Pascal stumbling out
to the backyard to finish weeding the circle of pansies before
dinner--she wondered about the gash that was his mouth. She distinctly
remembered carving it so that the ends curved upward into a frozen and
quite harmless smile. But one end of the toothless grin seemed to sag a
little, like the cynical smile of one who knows his powers have been
underestimated.

Corinne would not have had to worry about her husband's reaction to the
new vegetable-topped Pascal. Ronald accepted the transformation
good-naturedly, thinking that a little levity, once in a while, was a
good thing.

"And after all," said Corinne later that evening, "I'm the one who has
to spend all day in the house with ..." She lowered her voice: "With
Pascal."

But Ronald wasn't listening. He retired to his den to finish the plans
for the mass production of competent mechanical men. One for every home
in America.... He fell asleep with the thought.

* * * * *

Corinne and Pascal spent the next two weeks going through pretty much
the same routine. He, methodically jolting through the household chores;
she, walking aimlessly from room to room, smoking too many cigarettes.
She began to think of Pascal as a boarder. Strange--at first he had been
responsible for that unwanted feeling. But now his helpfulness around
the house had lightened her burden. And he was so cheerful all the time!
After living with Ronald's preoccupied frown for seven years ...

After luncheo