The Prize

4

THE seven-storey Grand Hotel of Stockholm, located on the quay at S. Blasieholmsh 8, faced the majestic Royal Palace, directly across the Strommen canal, as an equal.

Few hotels in Europe, and none in Scandinavia, surpassed the Grand Hotel of Stockholm. It had been erected in 1874, when Ulysses S. Grant was President of the United States and Benjamin Disraeli the Prime Minister of England, and except for certain renovations of the rooms and suites in a recent decade, it remained unchanged, proud of its years and high esteem.

Unlike most hotels, in dark December the Grand was more crowded and more festive than in the summer months. While the two veranda grills were closed, because of their exposure to the cold weather, the ornate inner Breakfast Room, off the lobby, and the enormous three-storey Winter Garden, with its dome of glass, and balconies, and pillared arches, abounded with visitors and their hosts.

There were precisely 297 rooms in the Grand Hotel, smartly serviced by a trained staff of 550 men and women, and on this early morning of the third of December, every room was accounted for if not occupied. There were six choice suites, each with its pair of entry halls, sitting-room, one bedroom with twin beds or two bedrooms with single beds, and large bathroom furnished with two wash-basins, toilet, and bidet, and annually, at this time of the year, these suites were held in reserve for the Nobel Prize winners summoned to Stockholm. The use of these rooms for seven days, and the Continental breakfasts, were entirely paid for by the Nobel Foundation.

This year, five of the six choice suites had been reserved, and this early morning of the third of December, four of the five were already filled by Nobel guests from Paris, Rome, Georgia, California, and the fifth was being held in immaculate readiness for the delayed arrival of the literature laureate from Wisconsin…

The sleek Foreign Office limousine made a graceful U turn, bending around the row of taxis parked on the quay, and drew up before the impressive, gaping entrance to the Grand Hotel.

Andrew Craig, crowded into a corner of the rear seat by Ingrid Påhl’s ample person, puffed his pipe, perhaps faster than he knew, and waited. During the entire drive from the station, he had been relatively uncommunicative. He had replied to the questions directed at him briefly, and in as friendly a manner as possible, then lapsed into silence, while Leah nervously carried on, making fanciful excuses for their change of plans in Copenhagen and bubbling over the sights outside the car window. Craig hardly glanced outside the window at all. His disinterest and silence came, not from the Scotch-nearly a fifth-that he had consumed in the night or any resultant hangover, but from a growing apprehension, a reluctance to revisit the hotel where Harriet and he had spent their first honeymoon night abroad a decade ago.

Now they had arrived, and the emotionally charged meeting was at hand. The doorman, wearing a long military coat that made him resemble a refugee White Russian officer, had opened the car, and stood rigidly at attention, fingers to the brim of his cap. Krantz scrambled out first, and then Count Bertil Jacobsson closed Krantz’s jump seat, and his own, and worked his way out of the car. Leah followed him, and Ingrid Påhl followed her, and then it was Craig’s turn.

While porters struggled with the cases, Craig stood on the wooden board walk and surveyed the magnificent vista that he had remembered so well. The Strommen canal was placid and unfrozen beneath the pale sun. Off to one side, two white excursion boats lay at anchor before the National Gallery. Across the way, like an ancient lion at rest with paws extended, sat the familiar eighteenth-century Royal Palace, and behind it was the spire of the hallowed Riddarholm Church. Over the canal, linking the new city with the Old Town, stretched the bridge known as Strömbron, dotted with pedestrians and pygmy automobiles and a bright blue tram. At a distance rose the massive Royal Opera House, and hidden behind it, he recalled, was the busy square called Gustav Adolfs Torg.

Jacobsson was beside him, blowing condensed air into the palms of his reindeer leather gloves. ‘I am truly regretful we could not order warmer weather for you, Mr. Craig. The sun is deceptive. Actually, it is below fifty degrees Fahrenheit. But at least, it has not snowed. I am told it will not for another month.’

‘I’m used to this weather, to worse weather, where I come from,’ said Craig.

‘You mentioned that you were here before?’

‘Yes. Some years after the war.’ He turned and recognized the huge revolving doors. ‘Nothing has changed.’

‘Well, we might as well go inside, get the chill out of our bones.’

Craig saw that Leah, flanked by the other two members of the reception committee, had preceded them, and he followed the old Count through the revolving doors and inside. Slowly, he ascended the eight stone stairs, the rubber matting muffling his shoes, and now he was in the lobby.

While Jacobsson continued after the others to the reception desk, Craig remained motionless at the top of the stairs.

Nothing had changed, nothing at all. The main lobby was as vast as ever, and between the two pillars, the sitting-room and on either side of the pillars, the elevators marked Hiss. Walking slowly to his right, he circled the main lobby. There was the smaller reading room, with its fat chairs, and glittering glass showcases featuring Guerlain perfumes, Silvanders’ ties, Kosta goblets, Sjögren jewellery. Next came the towering door with the sign ‘Grands Veranda’, and this was the Breakfast Room. Alongside were more showcases with Orrefors vases and Jensen silver, and then a chocolate kiosk, and suddenly he came upon the narrow news-stand with its assortment of foreign newspapers and magazines. Here it was that Harriet went daily, every afternoon before cocktails, for her day-old Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune.

He was not moved. There was no nostalgia at all. No bittersweet memory ached inside. Yet nothing had changed, except himself.

When he reached the others at the portier’s desk, Leah was before him. ‘There’s no mail, except a funny cable from Lucius and something about the new omnibus edition from your publisher. Do you want to read them?’

‘Later.’

Her forehead creased. ‘You were looking around. Is it different?’

‘Oh, yes. I’d almost forgotten everything. After all, we were here only a week.’

‘I’m terribly excited, Andrew. I’ve never been in a place like this before.’

Jacobsson approached them from the reservation counter. ‘I am sorry holding you up,’ he said courteously, ‘but there was a blunder about your rooms. They gave you suite 225. That is one of the most desirable suites, looking down on the canal, but it has only one bedroom with twin beds. They thought you were married.’

Leah’s colour rose in her cheeks. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I explained. You will have the same suite, of course, but they are arranging to free an adjoining single bedroom. It will be ready in an hour. It can be made to connect with the drawing-room. Meanwhile, the original suite is ready.’

‘I can’t wait to unpack,’ said Leah. With Jacobsson and Krantz, she started for the elevator, then turned. ‘Aren’t you coming, Andrew?’

‘In a moment. I just want to pick up some reading.’

‘I’m afraid you won’t have much time for that,’ said Jacobsson with a chuckle.

They continued to the elevator. Ingrid Påhl, steadying her floral hat, hastened from the information counter to join them, but Craig intercepted her.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I thought you had already gone upstairs.’

‘Miss Påhl, I-where can I get a drink here?’

‘Do you mean coffee?’

‘I mean a highball.’

She did not disguise her confusion, and Craig understood this, knowing that it was only 9.40 in the morning.

‘Why, of course, Mr. Craig-’

‘It’s been a gruelling trip, and I’m still on Wisconsin time. I can’t think of anything more distasteful than Scotch before breakfast, but I’m afraid I need a bracer.’

The explanation was satisfactory. ‘Here, let me show you,’ said Ingrid Påhl, taking his arm. ‘Do you mind if I join you? I could stand a hot cocoa.’

They found a table next to the dance floor at one side of the Winter Garden. Except for a few other couples, the mammoth room-Craig had always thought that it looked like a college field house decorated for a prom-was devoid of life. At this hour, most guests were having breakfast in their rooms or off the lobby.

Ingrid Påhl fiddled inside her embroidered handbag, until the waiter materialized. Craig ordered a cocoa and buttered toast for her, and a double Scotch-and-water for himself.

‘It was more awkward getting a drink when I was here last time,’ he said for conversation.

‘When was that?’

‘Ten years ago.’

‘Yes, we had liquor control in those days and that horrible Bratt System. Well, there is no use lying about it, we are a nation of drunkards-well, heavy drinkers, anyway. It is the long winter nights, I think-the dampness, the gloom this time of the year-that makes men turn to strong brännvin. But Dr. Ivan Bratt-you know, his national law to control sales of alcohol went into effect way back in 1919-solved nothing, made matters even worse. To obtain a ration book for beverages, you had to tell the district system company your whole life story. It was a terrible, prying thing. And then you had to queue at the systemet, like sheep, to get three litres-less than a quart a month. Can you imagine that? And there were inequities. Married women were not permitted to have ration books at all. It created all sorts of evils. A black market in ration books. Bootlegging from Finland. Home distilleries. Evils Sweden had never known before. Having a drink in a restaurant was even worse. I am sure you remember, Mr. Craig.’

‘Vaguely. You couldn’t have a cocktail without ordering food, something like that.’

‘In the restaurants, wine and beer were unlimited, but did you ever try the beer in those days? Distilled water, I assure you. No drinks were served before noon. A woman could not really have a full drink of hard liquor until three o’clock. And then, as you point out, when you were served, you had to buy food with it, if you were hungry or not. No food, no spirits. Most restaurants became quite clever. They would serve you the drink with an old, old egg they used over and over again. And no matter what your needs, you were limited to what you might call four shots a day. It did not help a particle. In the ten years before the end of the war, there were a quarter of a million people here found guilty of misdemeanours induced by alcohol. Even the prohibitionists were against Bratt, though for different reasons. There was one temperance society, the Blue Band, that objected because the law made people waste valuable food to obtain drink, and this while half of Europe was starving. Well, we’re a rational country, and the people would not stand for it. It was our one national deformity. Bratt had been so personally abused that he had gone into exile in France. So, in 1955, the Riksdag abolished liquor control, overwhelmingly. And I am proud. You do not fetter an entire people’s thirst. I do not drink-oh, a medicinal sip or two at nights before bedtime, to keep me tuned-but I am proud. If you wish a bottle, you can now walk two or three blocks from here, to the first shop, and order whatever you like. No ration books, and no questions, although they will not sell to a customer who is obviously drunk. Of course, a new inequity has already arisen. The price of a bottle of alcohol, and the tax on it, makes it very dear. I do not believe that is fair, either. Pricing hard drink out of reach may be a means of creating a false temperance, but it only indulges the rich who can afford to drink as much as they please, and it deprives the labourer and the poor. Everyone who reads me thinks I am an eccentric old lady who lives in the country and thinks only of nature’s beauty and bird-watching, but I am more than that, Mr. Craig. I am concerned about all injustice. I abhor it on any level.’

‘I’m on your side,’ said Craig. He had read about Ingrid Påhl, but had never read her books, and had not known what to expect. Now, he liked her enormously.

‘Here is your drink,’ she said. ‘I am sure I have made you ravishingly thirsty.’

The waiter served them, and after a short argument, Craig won the right to sign the bill.

Ingrid Påhl lifted her cup of cocoa. ‘Down with Bratt and up with skål,’ she said.

‘Skål and down with Bratt,’ said Craig, and he drank.

‘I have your programme,’ she said, and touched the folded paper that she had found while fumbling around in her handbag, and had placed beside her saucer. ‘Do you want to see it now?’

‘I’ll read it later. What are the highlights?’

‘The first highlight is today, two o’clock, at the Swedish Press Club. You and the other winners will be formally interviewed by the world press. Tonight, at seven, cocktails and dinner in the Royal Palace with the King. It is full evening dress only for the nobility. Tomorrow, a grand tour of the city. Count Jacobsson and an attaché will be your guides. The day after, a formal dinner in the country tendered by Ragnar Hammarlund, our billionaire industrialist. It is optional, but as an author, I would not miss it. After that, all sorts of small events, until the final Nobel Ceremony at Konserthuset-Concert Hall-at five o’clock in the afternoon. Does your head spin?’

Craig smiled. ‘A little.’ He consulted his watch. ‘Do you mean in only four hours from now I have to meet all those reporters?’

‘I am afraid so.’

He shook the ice in his glass. I’d better stick to one drink.’ He looked at his companion. ‘How are these press conferences? Are they rough?’

‘Very.’

He brought the glass to his lips. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’d better make that two drinks.’

It was 2.10 in the afternoon, and the four press conferences of the Nobel laureates were already under way.

With a sigh of relief, Count Bertil Jacobsson sat in the straight-backed chair behind the reception table in the seclusion of the second floor cloakroom of the Swedish Press Club. Under his direction and that of his secretary, Astrid Steen, the Club had been prepared earlier for these interviews. The immense hall, beyond the closed door of the cloakroom, had been partitioned by half-a-dozen screens into two separate and private rooms. The Drs. Marceau had been installed in one half, and Professor Stratman in the other half. Off the hall, the confined rear reading-room had been assigned to Dr. Farelli and Dr. Garrett. The nearest, larger lounge had been turned over to Mr. Craig.

It had been planned that the different winners would meet one another formally this evening, during the cocktail period, at the Royal Palace. But since they were all assembling here in the afternoon, Jacobsson felt that their simultaneous presence, without introduction, might be awkward. At the last moment, he had requested the participants to arrive at a quarter to two, instead of two, so that they might become acquainted informally.

The fifteen minutes before the press conference, when the laureates had been herded together in the hall, introduced to one another, and served sherry and whisky with ice, had been curiously uncomfortable minutes for Jacobsson, and apparently for all concerned. Individually, each of them seemed sociable, even amicable, but together, as a group, they did not jell. It was odd, reflected Jacobsson. Perhaps it would have been wiser to invite their wives and relatives, who were at this moment elsewhere, being treated to luncheon by the wives of the various members of the Nobel academies.

Except for Dr. Farelli, an overpowering and gregarious personality, none of the others had mixed or conversed easily. They had met as strangers, and they were strangers still, despite their common victory. Professor Stratman had taken several pills with his sherry and had appeared preoccupied. Drs. Denise and Claude Marceau had not exchanged a single word with each other-there was definitely some disagreement between them-and had been too strained to mingle with the others. Dr. Garrett, whom Jacobsson had introduced first and properly to his co-winner Dr. Farelli, had seemed to be struck dumb. He had stammered several inarticulate words to the Italian, and then left him as he might a leper, and he had thereafter been mute and unaccountably agitated. Mr. Craig, who had arrived last, had been disinterested in the others and had devoted most of his attentions to the waiter, consuming three Scotches with ice in the fifteen minutes. It had been with sincere gratefulness that Jacobsson had greeted the first press arrivals, and had ordered Mrs. Steen to take the laureates to their separate stations.

Drumming his fingers nervously on the cloakroom table, Jacobsson wondered if the mistake had been his own. Perhaps he should have avoided their meeting until evening when the different winners, without the stress of a press conference ahead, mellowed by the spirits and food of the Royal Palace and the presence of His Majesty, would have been more receptive to one another. The idea of a simultaneous press conference, never before attempted, had been his own touch of showmanship. Several local newspaper executives had protested, for it meant assigning four reporters instead of one to manage full coverage. But Jacobsson had been adamant. He had felt that requiring more reporters in attendance this year would make the newspapers even more conscious of the importance of Nobel Week. Furthermore, he had assumed that the concurrent release of interviews with all six winners in the four categories would make a greater impression on international readers. Now he hoped that he had not been wrong.

The turnout had been promising. The racks of the cloakroom were thick with coats, male and female, of every description and colour. The open guest book, at his fingertips, gave further evidence of a success. He scanned the four pages and estimated that over one hundred reporters were present. Representatives of all the Swedish newspapers and periodicals had signed in, and so had, he could see, foreign representatives of the great weeklies of the world, Der Spiegel of Hamburg, Świat of Warsaw, L’Express of Paris, Il Mondo of Rome, the Spectator of London, Life magazine of New York, and O Cruzeiro of Rio de Janeiro. Above all, there were present the foreign reporters of the important wire services, Associated Press and United Press International and Consolidated Newspapers of America, Tass of Russia, Reuters of Great Britain, Agence France-Presse of France, and so on and on.

He was alerted by the hall door of the cloakroom softly opening. Mrs. Steen wriggled in and closed the door behind her.

‘How is it going?’ Jacobsson inquired anxiously.

‘Smoothly, as far as I can tell, sir.’

‘No trouble from the press members?’ asked Jacobsson. He did not object to good-natured raillery. (Along with the reporters, he had enjoyed the fun at the press conference in 1960 for young Dr. Donald Glaser, the American laureate in physics. Dr. Glaser’s trip to Stockholm had doubled for a honeymoon, and jesting reporters had inquired of Mrs. Glaser, ‘Did you know he was going to get the Nobel Prize-is that why you married him?’) What Jacobsson did object to was celebrity baiting. Every year, there proved to be several reporters who invited irritation by asking rude or personal questions, in order to create front-page copy.

‘The press seems tame enough,’ said Mrs. Steen, ‘but then, it is still the early stages. A few more drinks, and-’ She shrugged her shoulders.

‘And our laureates-are they controlled?’ By this, Jacobsson really meant, had any one of them made any intemperate remarks. Only this noon, in an hour of divine privacy in his apartment, he had added a painful jotting to his Notes: ‘In September, 1930, in Paris, Eugene O’Neill, who would become a literary laureate six years later, told Nathan, the American critic: “I think the Nobel Prize, until you become very old and childlike, costs more than it’s worth. It’s an anchor around one’s neck that one would never be able to shake off.” Distressing.’

‘They are all being most moderate,’ Mrs. Steen was saying. ‘But the questions are still moderate, also. They are being asked their feelings when informed of winning the prize, and about their trips to Sweden, and about their first reactions to Stockholm. That sort of thing. I do not know what they will say, when the interviews become bolder.’

Jacobsson lifted himself erect. ‘Perhaps I had better look in myself to see if the interviews are becoming bolder. Our guests may feel less uneasy, if they see a familiar face and an ally.’

As quietly as possible, Count Bertil Jacobsson took his place on a vacant folding chair to the rear, and peered past a portion of the fifteen or twenty press members to see how Dr. Denise Marceau and Dr. Claude Marceau were performing.

Claude Marceau was speaking to a reporter in the first row, measuring and doling out each phrase, brandishing his burning cigarette as he spoke. His full greying hair, serious Gallic countenance almost handsome, neat pin-striped dark-grey suit, offered the appeal of assurance and authority. In the opposite corner of the divan, at least four feet apart from him, sat Denise Marceau. She did not watch her husband as he spoke. In fact, she hardly seemed to be listening to him. She sat tensely, with her back straight and knees together, her hands working a white handkerchief in her lap. Occasionally, she jerked her shoulders, as if even the gently shaped green tweed suit she wore were too binding. She stared impassively ahead.

Jacobsson wondered if anyone else noticed that she was unhappy. Perhaps, he hoped, he was wrong, and she was shy of public appearances and merely nervous. Chemists often were a peculiar lot. It was probably the result of too many hours among their glass stills, and heaters, and vacuum pumps. Perhaps their compounds and camphor, unbeknownst to themselves, depressed them. Jacobsson prayed that Madame le docteur would eventually say something amusing.

On the divan, so composed and detached to the unprobing and insensitive eye, Denise Marceau was not entirely unaware of her husband’s monologue. He is hypnotizing them, she thought. He is impressing them favourably, the great genius offering the chiselled phrases and opinions from Olympus, she thought. And then she thought: I wonder what those reporters would say if I told them the old lecher’s condition when I informed him that we had won this damn prize. And I wonder how they would react if I suddenly stood up, and shouted at Claude, ‘Oh, merde!’ and walked off.

The impulsive thought pleased Denise, and forced a smile to her lips, and she realized that her smile had been noticed by the ancient Swedish Count in the back row, and that he was smiling back. For a moment, her ordeal became less tormenting. She told herself that after all, if she divorced Claude (and, much as she detested the necessity, she could see no other course this afternoon), she would be a widow, no, not a widow but a divorcée, a single unit, and she would have to stand on her own feet. Her future would then be based on her fame as one Curie, not two. She must not allow Claude to leave her behind, floundering, helpless, dependent upon him. She must rise alone, and show the world that she never needed that skirt-chasing fool. In short, she must be practical. And the time was now. The Nobel Prize was their stepping-stone to immortality. If she permitted him to dominate it, the world would think that the honour was his alone. Her duty was to make it her prize, too, as a safeguard against the near future.

She pushed the fantasy of Claude and Gisèle on their future wedding night-how could he enjoy that bag of bones? but he had, damn him!-out of her mind, and became attentive to the opportunity at hand.

‘-and so we stopped our researches on coenzyme A,’ Claude was saying, ‘and we concentrated our full attention on this new possibility, which we had conceived, that of preserving and banking male hereditary semen.’

‘Did you tell them, dear, exactly how we came on this new project?’ Denise asked with a tight tiny smile.

‘Well, as you heard, I indicated that we had both become interested-’

‘Of course. But I mean the whole story, dear.’

The Stockholm Expressen reporter in the front row was immediately interested. ‘What is the whole story, Dr. Marceau?’ he asked her.

Denise abandoned Claude to his perplexity and firmly took over the reins. ‘I think it is rather amusing, an ironic sidelight, that this discovery of ours, for which we are being honoured, deals with the male spermatozoa, yet the project was initiated by a female. As my husband will generously corroborate, it was I, quite by chance-but who knows? perhaps nothing like this is pure chance-who first brought up the possibility.’

The Expressen man sniffed his lead. ‘Pardon, Dr. Marceau, but are you saying that you, alone, hit upon the discovery?’

Denise could feel the divan move beneath Claude’s angry quiver, and she was pleased. Still, it would win her no sympathy to let this get out of hand. ‘Oh, nothing like that, exactly. My husband and I worked closely, after I had brought up the possibility. Make no mistake about it, we are a team. We are ensemble. Our accomplishment, for whatever it be worth, cannot be divided in two, now or ever. All I have tried to say is-and I thought it would amuse you gentlemen-someone had to conceive the hypothesis, and, in this case, it happened to be I.’

‘Yes, in that sense it is true,’ Claude said, too quickly, too uneasily, suspecting danger and trying to avert it and keep the peace. ‘Six years ago-we were having lunch, with colleagues-a new paper on the female ovum was being bandied about. The talk turned to heredity-heredity control-’

‘-and I looked at Claude,’ interrupted Denise, determined to have the attention of the press, and concentrating on the Le Monde reporter, ‘and I said-I remember the very words this day-I said, “Suppose it were possible to preserve the living spermatozoa of a Charlemagne or an Erasmus, or the unfertilized egg of a Cleopatra, and implant them today, by modern means, centuries after their donors were dead?” Those were my words, and that was our beginning.’ She turned sweetly to her husband. ‘Remember, dear?’

‘Yes,’ he said dully, ‘it was a fortuitous remark. It was then that I suggested-’ Ah, thought Denise, he is irritated. Good, good. ‘-that we look into the matter further.’ He turned to the reporters. ‘And we did, for six years, together.’

Denise beamed at the rows of faces. ‘I could never have done it alone. My husband was wonderful. It was a work of devoted collaboration. There is a telepathy between us, you might even call it a mystique bond. I know what he thinks, he knows what I think, and we save precious time by these perceptions.’

Claude shifted uncomfortably on the divan, and reached for his sherry on the end table, as the reporters bent their heads and scribbled on their pads.

The Agence France-Presse man lifted his hand, and then posed the next inquiry. ‘Dr. Marceau,’ he asked Denise, ‘I wonder if you could clarify for all of us-not in scientific detail, necessarily-we are laymen-but clarify what your discovery is all about. Were you the first in this field or had others worked on the same problem?’

‘Now, that is two questions, but I will do my best with both of them,’ Denise replied with a charming smile. ‘Let us take the last one first. What made our discovery possible was the successful application of artificial insemination to humans. This was first attempted in London a century and a half ago. The greatest advance in artificial impregnation was made in 1939, by Dr. Gregory Pincus of America, Clark University, if I recall correctly. He transplanted the egg from the ovum of one female rabbit into another female rabbit, and an offspring was successfully produced. Now, despite religious opposition, and sometimes legal barriers, artificial insemination is widely practised. In America alone, I am told, there have been fifty thousand so-called test-tube children, that is, children conceived without intercourse. Once this artificial means of procreation was possible, and acceptable, the next step was-well, the step my husband and I took-controlled heredity.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Before I inveigled you into this field, Claude, how many others, would you say, were researching along the same lines?’

Claude did not deign to look at her or reply directly to her. He addressed the Agence France-Presse man. ‘In France, our own Dr. Jean Rostand, back in 1946, kept a frog’s seminal cells alive. In London, a bull’s semen, treated with glycerine and carbonic snow, was kept alive. You must understand, sir, that the problem was to keep the male sperm from perishing, so that it could be transferred. In artificial insemination, the donor’s sperm was rarely more than two hours old. The problem was-how to keep this same human sperm alive not for two hours but two months or two years or two centuries, and still preserve its power to fertilize the female egg. The Dr. Pincus of whom my wife spoke, with Dr. Hudson Hoagland, both Americans, made remarkable experiments in this field. They thought it possible that a genius could sire a family of several hundred and do it a century after he was in his grave-by leaving behind him vitrified sperms. The hopes this opened for humanity were staggering. Our own Dr. Rostand remarked, “Under a system of artificial selection, the proportion of human beings of high quality would be bound to become greater-and, indeed, much greater-than it is in our time,” It was our problem to make this dream a reality, and I am proud that we have succeeded.’

‘And the means?’ repeated the Agence France-Presse man.

‘I promised to answer that,’ said Denise Marceau, deliberately taking over again. ‘After I convinced Claude it was more than a fancy-he is at heart a sceptic, like all fine investigators-he joined me wholeheartedly in tackling the problem of vitrification. We followed the leads of other geneticists-that is, applied glycerol to protect the sperm before freezing and later thawing. We found glycerol little more than sixty per cent effective. Only six out of ten human sperm cells survived this freezing at one hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The problem that haunted us was to get a higher percentage of sperms to survive freezing, and to have them survive not a few months of cold storage but many years. After ceaseless trial and error-I suspect Claude wanted to throw up his hands many times, but I had a woman’s persistence, abetted by intuition, about the project-we finally discovered the compound that we call P-437-our private joke is that the P stands for patience-and our experiments have proved that we can keep a male sperm in storage, and alive in suspended animation, for more than five years, probably ten.’

‘Magnificent,’ said the Agence France-Presse man, writing furiously.

‘Doctor,’ the Svenska Dagbladet reporter called to her from the third row, ‘you originally suggested that the living spermatozoa of a Charlemagne or Erasmus could be implanted in a modern-day woman. Dr. Marceau, your husband, spoke of dead geniuses giving the world today newborn children, families of hundreds, from their frozen sperms. Do you honestly believe this will become a reality?’

‘I believe so,’ said Denise, flatly. ‘Now it is possible, at last. There is a practical obstacle, of course. It requires fifty million sperms for a single human artificial insemination. Most geniuses, unfortunately, are recognized when they are old, less fertile than in their youth, sometimes sterile or impotent in their last years.’

‘Mozart was a genius at six,’ said the Svenska Dagbladet reporter.

‘Voilà,’ agreed Denise. ‘And he lived until thirty-five. The perfect subject. Had our discovery been made in the eighteenth century, what a heritage the world might now have from its Mozarts.’

‘Did you entertain such notions during your six years of research?’ inquired the Reuters man who sat in front of Jacobsson.

‘Constantly,’ said Denise. ‘I am a scientist first, but also a woman and a romantic.’ She glanced playfully at Claude’s stern face. ‘My husband, perhaps to our advantage, is less tolerant of romantic fairy tales. His life is the test tube.’ She turned towards the Reuters man. ‘When we had almost succeeded, I was beside myself with my imaginings. And now that our work is a reality, I am as thrilled as before by the human possibilities. Consider. If our P-437 had existed in the sixteenth century, Anne Hathaway might have loaned your Shakespeare to the cause. Today Shakespeare’s actual sperms might be taken out of storage, thawed, and a dozen of your English ladies impregnated with them and in nine months these ladies would bear his children. Consider further. If our P-437 had existed in the last five hundred years, we would today have a storage bank containing the living reproductive sperms of Galileo, Pasteur, Newton, Darwin-Voltaire, Milton, Goethe, Balzac, Guy de Maupassant-Garrick, Casanova, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nietzsche, Benjamin Franklin-and tomorrow morning, I could go to this storage bank, remove and thaw the sperms of any of these geniuses, impregnate selected women in Sweden, England, America, or in my native France, and by next autumn, there would be delivered squealing sons and daughters spawned decades or centuries ago by Galileo or Goethe or Benjamin Franklin. Had we made our discovery earlier in our own lifetime, we might have in the storage bank the living sperms of Luther Burbank or Professor Einstein or Paderewski or, for that matter, Rudolph Valentino.’

‘Or Judas Iscariot,’ muttered the Die Weltwoche reporter from Zürich.

‘Oh, we need never take him out of the storage bank,’ said Denise. ‘Or we could thaw his sperms and throw them away.’

‘When do you start collecting the sperms from our present day geniuses?’ asked the Associated Press man.

‘Not yet, not so soon,’ said Denise. ‘But perhaps soon enough. More work must be done, more experiments by others. Claude and I have finished our work. Others must carry on, find the limits. And then we will be ready.’

‘What new field are you going to enter into next?’ asked the Associated Press man.

Denise demurely gestured towards Claude. ‘I prefer that my husband give that reply.’

Claude was caught off guard. ‘I-I do not know what we will try next. We have some ideas, but it is too early-we shall see.’

‘Madame-that is, Docteur-Marceau,’ called the Reuters representative, ‘to return, for a moment, to your rather optimistic hopes about the value of storing the sperms of the genius-do you mind?’

‘Go ahead, please.’

‘I could not help but remember a well-known anecdote about George Bernard Shaw. One day, the wild, uninhibited Isadora Duncan suggested to him that they cohabit in order to produce a perfect child. “Think of it,” I believe she told him, “our child would have my beauty and your brains.” Shaw replied, “But suppose, my dear, it turned out to have my beauty and your brains?”’ Everyone in the room laughed, including Denise, and then the Reuters man added, ‘Well, Dr. Marceau, in the case of your sperms, what if the result were the other way around?’

When the laughter subsided, Denise assumed a solemn demeanour. ‘Yes, I understand. It is really a serious matter. Of course, genius does not always, or even frequently, produce genius. Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd, did not automatically inherit the abilities of his illustrious father. And Lord Byron’s surviving daughter, Ada, what did she produce in maturity? A system for betting on horse-races that was a failure, and she died at thirty-six, shattered and deranged. On the other hand, John Adams, the second American president, gave the world John Quincy Adams, the sixth American president. And consider, also, Dumas père and Dumas fils. Here, genius was passed on. No doubt, it is a gamble. Yet controlled breeding, as applied to bulls and cows, has shown gratifying results in England. From the standpoint of modern eugenics, we can improve the human race by skilful mating of pedigreed human beings, men and women physically fit and of measured high mentality. Genius may not always be the result. Borrowing the heredity of Erasmus may not give us another Erasmus centuries later. But the odds would favour the possibility. Certainly, by using the sperms of brilliant men or physically healthy men, and implanting them in young women with the same characteristics, we will improve our chances of populating the world, one day, someday, with a superior people. There is no guarantee, but this is the hope, and for myself, I believe it is a promising one.’

An aged waiter, in a white jacket, appeared with a tray crowded with glasses, some filled with sherry, the rest with whisky. He glanced at Denise, and she nodded, welcoming the respite.

She accepted a whisky from the waiter, and settled back on the divan, pleased with herself. She watched him pass before the members of the press, and saw them taking drinks and whispering among themselves.

Suddenly, she was aware that Claude had moved closer to her, and that his features revealed cold anger.

‘I see you have taken over completely,’ he said in a low, harsh shaking voice. ‘What in the hell are you trying to do to me?’

It was a moment that she had fancied for weeks, and now she savoured it. She smiled at him with her lips. An American vulgarism came to mind, and she cherished it. She had first heard the vulgarism as the ending of an off-colour story told at a reception-months ago-by the intoxicated and raucous wife of a visiting chemist from Pennsylvania. Were she to abandon refinement, Denise told herself, how perfect could be her retort. At once, Claude’s brutal persecution of her filled her mind, and, at once, she thought, ‘Au diable!’ and abandoned refinement.

Her lips still smiled. ‘What am I trying to do to you? Why, dearest, I am simply trying to do to you what your darling Balenciaga mannequin has already done.’ Her smile broadened, ‘I, too, am trying to screw you.’

Delighted with Dr. Denise Marceau’s reversal of form, her sudden display of verbal pyrotechnics, Count Bertil Jacobsson used the interlude of the serving of refreshments to transfer his presence to the Stratman press conference progressing in the rear half of the hall, behind the series of screens.

Finding an empty chair at the periphery of the gathering, Jacobsson was not surprised that the attendance here exceeded, by one-third, the conference that he had just left. Physics and literature, he had observed in past years, almost inevitably out-drew chemistry and medicine. He had always assumed that this was because physics and literature were more publicized and controversial, and therefore more comprehensible to the layman.

What did surprise him, when he revolved slowly in his chair the better to observe the circle of journalists, was to find that he was sitting beside Carl Adolf Krantz.

‘Well, this is unexpected,’ he said in an undertone. ‘What brings you here? Are you writing for the newspapers? I thought you and Ingrid were happy to have the afternoon off.’

Krantz, absently manipulating a crooked metal puzzle in his hands as he sat absorbed in the questions and answers, acknowledged his older colleague. He brought a finger to his lips to indicate that silence must be observed in this holy place. ‘I could not miss the opportunity to hear the great Stratman,’ he whispered.

‘How does he handle himself?’ Jacobsson wanted to know.

‘With understandable assurance,’ said Krantz. ‘But they plague him with nonsensical questions. Our Swedish reporters are becoming as foolish as the Americans.’ He returned his gaze to the front of the room. ‘Soon we will arrive at the essentials.’

Looking from Krantz beside him to Professor Stratman almost out of sight in the recesses of a deep leather chair, Jacobsson was fascinated by the general similarity between his colleague and the Nobel laureate. Both were stunted men, almost dwarfish, like Charles Steinmetz, the electrical engineer, whom he had once met. Both, when seated, gave the impression of the human embryo curled within the amnion in the female womb. Both resembled round and wrinkled infants, incredibly advanced in age. This was the first and general impression-perhaps the one that unconsciously drew Krantz to his more celebrated counterpart-but, Jacobsson could see, the similarity dissolved when specific differences were considered at a second glance. Krantz, in his pinched suit, seemed the disapproving pedagogue; Stratman, in his baggy coat and trousers, seemed above criticizing or criticism. Krantz’s hair, dyed black, the porker features of his face, his sour mouth caught between moustache and goatee, gave one the feeling that here was disputer and complainant, analyzer and annotator, all but creator. Stratman’s outsized cranium, shiny red and almost hairless, his amused eyes all-seeing behind steel-rimmed bifocals, his nose as prominent as a Christmas tree decoration, the ready smile, gave one the feeling that here was genius so simple and assured and secure that it dwelt high above all mundane carpings and concerns and criticisms. Here was the originator. Here was the Maker. No wonder at Krantz’s reverence.

Jacobsson tried to concentrate on the laureate as mere man, not Maker, and momentarily regretted that he had to subject such a one to the low curiosity of the press.

How, he speculated, could a Stratman bring his lofty brain processes down from the rarefied summit to consider earthly matters of a telegram from Stockholm, a sea passage on a Swedish ship, a reaction to a Baltic community? Could Jacobsson have known the reality of the brain processes of the laureate, he would have had his answer and have been astonished.

For Professor Max Stratman, folded into the leather chair, one hand rubbing the meerschaum pipe, legs comfortably crossed, had his mind on matters of less than cosmic interest. Earlier, replying to questions about his trip from Atlanta to New York to Göteborg, he had been reminded that for the first time since the end of the war he was in a foreign country, no more than two or three hours from his native land, the land of his birth, and upbringing, and learning, and sorrow. Proximity evoked ancient memories: taking turns with Walther at the keyhole of the library for glimpses of the peasants his physician father treated in their country home; he and Walther running and skipping, beside his father, through the pungent grass, to the stable; Walther and Rebecca and the infant Emily-no, not infant, she had been older and hitting a rattle against the high chair-gathered about the table, to partake of the roast chicken, on Christmas Day when dinner was not lunch but dinner at noon, and he was there, glowing with pride in his family and with pleasure in the woollen muffler that Rebecca had knitted for him.

His thoughts had turned to his Emily-could he have imagined then that she would be his Emily?-and now he fixed on her, once more, as he had with compulsive regularity since the arrival in Stockholm. It was for Emily that he had made this long, risky journey, or perhaps less for Emily than for Walther and Rebecca and the remembrance of that Christmas noon.

Only after his arrival in Stockholm had Stratman authoritatively learned that the trip had not been necessary. The Nobel Foundation made occasional exceptions to the rule that their winners appear in person. He was told that when Ernest Hemingway won the literature prize, he had been recovering from a skull fractured and a spine broken in an African aeroplane crash, and he had been permitted to accept the $35,000 reward by post in Cuba. Had the Nobel givers known his own heart condition, they would, Stratman was sure, have granted him the same consideration as Mr. Hemingway. He decided for the tenth time, despite Dr. Ilman, that the trip had been worth the chance, rather than make public-to his colleagues and to Emily-his impairment.

The episode on the ship had proved him right. That last night at sea, even Emily’s slight security had been proved wanting. What on earth had possessed her to encourage that young man to violate her privacy, knowing full well that she was incapable of accepting his attentions? Ach, the distortions of the human head, forever substituting wish for reality. No doubt, it had been an irrational effort by Emily to stand on her own two feet, mature and independent of her Uncle Max, to cut the final umbilical cord. The not unexpected disaster had been a setback. Now, in Stockholm, she was edgier than at home, more withdrawn, and the evening before had even turned down the invitation of a gallant Swedish attaché to escort her to the opera. Yes, the episode on the ship had been the setback. It had reminded Emily that she was helpless, and certainly, Stratman told himself, it had reminded him of her need and his responsibility.

Dimly, he heard his name, and then realized that he had another responsibility, and that to perform attentively for his generous Nobel hosts.

‘Professor Stratman,’ the Stockholm Aftonbladet journalist was repeating, ‘would you not say that the Nobel Prize was given you more for an invention than for a discovery?’

‘I would put it this way, more precisely-I made a discovery, and then I made an invention.’

‘But it was the invention that won the prize, nevertheless.’

‘It is possible.’

‘Do you believe that this is in strict observance of Alfred Nobel’s wishes? While it is a fact that, according to his 1895 will, he offered one part of his money “to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics”, the Swedish Academy of Science has traditionally ignored inventions. After all, your American, Thomas Edison, who died only in 1931, did not win the Nobel Prize for that reason. How do you feel about this?’

Stratman studied his meerschaum a moment, then looked up. ‘It would be presumptous of me, a guest as well as a beneficiary of Mr. Nobel’s will, to comment on how the Academy of Science chooses to interpret that will.’ He paused, reconsidered, then resumed. ‘I think it would be fair to say this much. To the best of my knowledge, the prize in physics has frequently been given to inventions in physics. The Academy of Science has in no way ignored Mr. Nobel’s desires. Several examples come to mind. I think of Herr Guglielmo Marconi. In 1895, he invented the wireless telegraph. In England, using a kite as an aerial, he demonstrated that this invention worked. Soon he was building a radio station for the Pope and amassing a fortune of twenty-five million dollars for himself. In 1909, I believe, he was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for “services in the development of wireless telegraphy”. That is one case. I give you another, in another field. In 1903, my friend Willem Einthoven began constructing an instrument to detect heart ailments. In 1924, he won the Nobel Prize “for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram”. That was an invention, pure and simple. A more recent case comes to my mind. In 1956, three Americans, William Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, all of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, shared the Nobel physics prize for “their discovery of transistor effects”. This, too, was an invention, the invention of the transistor to replace vacuum tubes. It turned upside down the world of electronics. In those terms, is the photochemical system I have discovered to convert and store solar energy an invention? The answer is yes-it is an invention. Does this kind of invention fall within the boundaries of the Nobel awards? Again, evaluating against historical precedent, the answer is yes.’

Someone in the middle row raised his hand and began to ask another question, but Stratman held up his pipe for further attention. He was not through, and again he addressed himself to the busily writing Aftonbladet journalist.

‘I might add-in honesty, I might add one more point,’ said Stratman. ‘You made mention of the neglect of Thomas Alva Edison by the Nobel Committee. Strictly speaking, Herr Edison was not a physicist, not a chemist, not a physician. He was entirely the inventor. I do not know, but possibly this made him ineligible for a Nobel Prize. I want to say, I think he was one of the most remarkable scientists that the world ever produced. He took out over one thousand patents-he invented the phonograph, the electric lamp, the mimeograph, the alkaline storage battery, the kinetograph-but he conceived only one scientific discovery as such, the Edison effect, so vital to radio and television. Perhaps I am, as my colleagues call it, sticking my neck out to speak further, but at my age, such things do not matter. It is my opinion that between 1901 and 1931 Herr Edison should have received a Nobel Prize in physics. This is not an adverse commentary on the judges of those days. Their task was not an easy one. Indeed, they had to give themselves limitations. Omissions are understandable to me. I only make an opinion, with the comfort of hindsight. Herr Edison should have won the prize.

‘Also, while we speak of these matters, I believe Herr Wilbur Wright, who lived until 1912, and Herr Orville Wright, who lived until-think, yes, 1948-both alive during the time of the Nobel Prizes-should have been honoured in physics for developing the first practicable aircraft. Now, my neck is far out, but you see I favour the inventions in physics as much as the discoveries. I think the Swedish Academy of Science does, too-or why would I be here?-and that their sins of omission have been admirably few. The only overall omission I would criticize is the pitifully few prizes given to pure theorists-let us say like Herr Einstein and Herr Bohr and Herr Schrödinger. Experimentalists-discoverers, inventors-are too frequently honoured. They are important, very important, but most discoveries utilize and verify either Einstein’s theory of relativity or the old conversion of momentum theories. At the same time, the abstract theorists, the elite of physics, are too frequently overlooked. To my mind, that is the major defect in Soviet science today. The Russians devote so much effort and money to satellites, nuclear weapons, rockets, that they neglect basic research and abstract theory, and one day, they will suffer for it.’

Stratman raised his head, seeking the Aftonbladet journalist, and said, ‘I hope that answers your questions’. His eyes swept the hall. ‘You see what happens when you ask me provocative questions? You will be here all the day and tonight. Now, I am ready for more, if you are.’

The reporter from the Stockholm Dagens Nyheter was standing, and Stratman acknowledged him by adjusting his bifocals and nodding.

‘Herr Professor,’ the reporter began, ‘so far we have been discussing discoveries and inventions in general, and of the past, and I should like to bring the interview to a specific point and to the present-’

‘Jawohl,’ Stratman agreed.

‘You have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for the “discovery and invention of a photochemical conversion and storage system for solar energy” and for the “practical application of solar energy to produce synthesized solid rocket propellants”. Except for reading, everywhere, that you have harnessed the rays of the sun, found a way to stock it and transport it, and proved that this kind of energy can help turn out rocket fuels, making obsolete the energy derived from coal and other fossil sources, I nowhere have read or been able to learn precisely what you have done.’

There was appreciative laughter in the room, and even Stratman responded with an understanding smile.

The Dagens Nyheter reporter earnestly continued. ‘I am not alone in wanting to know your process, your instrument or container, the means exactly for which you are being honoured. I have asked the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, and they cannot-or will not-tell me. Will you?’

Stratman peered impishly over his bifocals. ‘They cannot tell you, because they do not know-exactly.’

‘Herr Professor, I have no intention of being disrespectful-but how could they honour you for an invention about which they know so little?’

‘Because, I am told, your Swedish investigators came to the United States and learned from my government and my colleagues what I had done. They were shown proof of what I have done. They were shown results at our fuel plant in the Mojave Desert. But, for reasons of national security, they could not be shown the means, the process, the storage system.’

A woman from United Press International called out, ‘Professor Stratman, can you give us any detail of your actual discovery?’

He shook his head. ‘No. I am sorry, no.’

‘Not so much as a hint? Something to write about?’

‘Not even so much. I apologize deeply. It is highly classified military information.’

The Neues Deutschland man, who was from East Berlin, spoke up. ‘I am surprised they let you out of the country.’

Stratman smiled. ‘Because they saw I was an old man who needed a holiday. Besides, they agreed that I was an absent-minded professor who would never remember the formula, anyway.’ Suddenly, he was serious. ‘It is an unhappy state of the world, to have this censorship, I agree. It is not an exclusive symptom of my adopted homeland. Secrecy, in certain circles, is a way of life, an attitude towards survival, in your Sweden, your England, your Russia, too, I assure you. No longer can the scientist think of himself as a citizen of the world. The frontiers of his mind, once boundless, are now constricted by nationalist barriers. The fraternity of the past, exchanging ideas and findings, co-operating, is no more, to the detriment of humanity. But that is the fact of the situation. When there is a common effort to halt competition and erase fear from all minds, the international fraternity of science will meet and come to order again. Then, all men and all nations will profit. It is the day I hope to see, still in my lifetime.’

There was a spattering of applause among the reporters, and someone shouted, ‘Hear, hear,’ and Stratman seemed surprised and pleased.

‘Herr Professor,’ said the reporter from Svenska Dagbladet, ‘if you cannot give away the secrets of your invention, maybe you can tell us something useful in a general way. Why did you interest yourself in solar energy? What is the value in harnessing the sun’s rays?’

The press waited, as Stratman weighed his reply. At last, his dome of a head bobbed in the affirmative. ‘Ja, the questions are fair. It would be wrong to send you back to your editors empty-handed. So-the questions. I will try to avoid the lecture room, but speak in such a way that you will understand, at least, what the motive behind my work was, and what it has accomplished.’ He pointed his meerschaum towards the windows. ‘Out there is the sun. It is ninety-three million miles away, yet sun’s outer atmosphere engulfs our earth, and its rays of atomic energy-hydrogen atoms converted into helium atoms-dominate our daily lives. What kind of potential energy, in earth terms, does this sun offer our tiny planet? If our entire earth were covered with an ice layer four hundred and twenty-five feet thick, and if it could be melted-which it could not-the sun’s rays would melt all of it, every inch of it, in twelve months. It would take twenty-one billion tons of coal to match the solar energy that covers the earth every sixty minutes. In the Sahara Desert alone, the solar energy imparted in one day-one single day-is three times as much as all the coal used in the world in three hundred and sixty-six days. In any two days of the year, sunshine offers more energy than may be found in all the coals and other fossil fuels yet untouched beneath the earth’s crust. Potential power fantastic-ja-but how to enslave it?’

Stratman paused, allowing the interviewers time to absorb and record his remarks. When the heads began to look up, he went on.

‘Many men tried to enslave the sun power, and to small degrees, some succeeded. In 1864, a French physicist, Professor Augustin Mouchot, constructed a power boiler that was heated to run by sunrays instead of coal. The sun was funnelled through a truncated cone to the boiler, and it developed steam for use in irrigation. In 1870, a Swedish-American, John Ericsson, who had built the Monitor to fight the Merrimac, constructed a solar plant of mirrors, but the expense became prohibitive for the horsepower generated, and Ericsson quit. Persistent men, some dreamers, some practical, took up the work. The list is too long to recite-Eneas in 1901, Shuman in 1907, and since the First World War, Dr. C. G. Abbot, and a hundred more, with their parabolic mirrors and flat-plate collectors.

‘The major problem was always the same-it was intermittence of supply. By that I mean, the sun shone only in the day, and then not every day at that. How could one depend on such erratic power? The solution, of course, was not to depend directly on each new day of sunlight, but to collect the light, convert it into energy, returning more than thirty per cent efficiency, and then store the energy away for use whenever needed. But how to store solar energy? It would take me many hours to relate all the methods that have been tried. Men worked with thermocouples, and with photo-electric cells, and chemical cells. All of these were successful, but efficiency was far too low. Of one hundred per cent sunlight, only ten per cent could be saved and used. The pioneer work was dramatic, challenging, and I could not resist it. I entered the field. I concentrated on the means by which green leaves-plant organisms-flora-store carbohydrates. I wondered if the same process of nature could be simulated mechanically and in closed vessels. By chance, I was fortunate. I was able to improve the known methods of collecting and converting solar energy, both nature’s and man’s methods. More difficult and more important, I was able to find the means to store successfully and cheaply this energy for use when needed. My government colleagues assisted me in applying my findings to manufacturing solid fuels for heavy rocket propulsion.’

A hand shot up. It belonged to the representative of Berliner Morgenpost. ‘Professor Stratman, do you intend to continue to work in the field?’

‘Definitely. We have not even scratched the surface.’

‘What more can be done?’ asked the journalist from Jerusalem Post.

‘Infinite possibilities. We want to learn how to run factories with solar energy, and give inexpensive power and heat to homes through cheap roof collectors and individual power suppliers. We want to irrigate deserts with it, and illuminate entire cities by night. There is no end, and it all lies ahead. We are at the primitive beginning.’

The reporter from the Oslo Aftenposten made himself heard. ‘Does Soviet Russia have a similar invention?’

Stratman shook his head. ‘No comment.’ Then he added quickly, ‘Of course, they have been in the solar energy field since 1933. It is known that they built a power plant in the Uzbeck Soviet Republic. Today, they have a Russian Solar Power Institute. They have made great advances all along the line. As to their possessing what is now in our possession-of this I cannot speak further.’ He scanned the room. ‘I prefer not to discuss national policies. I will be co-operative in answering all general questions about science-or myself.’

‘Herr Professor.’ It was the Stockholm Expressen journalist. ‘You were at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin throughout the Second World War, were you not?’

‘That is true.’

‘Why did you not leave Germany?’

‘I could not. I am a Jew.’

‘We all met Dr. Fritz Lipmann, the biochemist, when he came here to receive the Nobel Prize in medicine during 1953. He was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and he also was a Jew. He got out to Copenhagen, and later to Boston. He did not work for Hitler. It is a matter of curiosity to many of us why so many of you Jewish scientists stayed behind.’

Stratman sat very quietly. He was tempted to say to the Swedish journalist: So many of my American colleagues fought Hitler, why not you? But it was foolish. The man was a journalist. He wanted a story. You provoked, and this way, you obtained a story. ‘I do not know Dr. Lipmann’s circumstances at the time,’ said Stratman slowly. ‘I know my own. Those dearest to me were in concentration camps. As long as I co-operated, they were kept alive. That is all I wish to say on that subject.’

A new voice, rather loud from the rear row, was heard. It was the Tass Agency man speaking. ‘Is it not true, Professor, that you were kidnapped by the Americans in Berlin, and taken to the United States at gunpoint?’

‘It is not true,’ said Stratman forcefully. ‘What is true is that I had been coerced into working for one totalitarian state, and I did not wish to be coerced into working for another. I went with the Americans voluntarily, and I have never been sorry.’

He wondered if they would publish that statement in Pravda or lzvestia. His heart hammered with old resentments. Control, he told himself, control. He must remember Dr. Ilman. He must think of Emily. He thought of Emily, and waited for the next question.

With an air both curious and troubled, Count Bertil Jacobsson stood inside the door of the confined reading-room and watched and listened to the third press conference taking place, now half over.

After eight minutes in the room, what bothered Jacobsson was this: if an innocent bystander had stood in his place, and seen what he had seen, he would surely have believed that only one person had won the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine, and not two, and he would have been convinced that one laureate was being interviewed, instead of a pair.

The group of journalists in the room, a smaller group than those in the previous two sections of the hall because both winners had already been so widely publicized for their dramatic discovery, had been aiming almost all of their questions at Dr. Carlo Farelli, of Rome, while Dr. John Garrett, of Pasadena, California, sat beside him like an inanimate piece of sculpture that needed the dustcloth.

Jacobsson asked himself why this was so, but the question was purely rhetorical. Dr. Farelli’s presence, as he leaned forward from the sofa, intimately addressing his audience, made the answer obvious. He was an attractive, dynamic human being. Dr. Farelli was a large man, not in height, but in width of face, and neck, and shoulders, and chest, and in the breadth of his gestures. Dr. Farelli conveyed the confidence of raw power. From some depth of academic memory, Jacobsson resurrected an image of the twenty-seventh Emperor of Rome, Maximinus I (A.D. 235-238), a giant of eight feet who was half Goth, half Alan, a giant who wore his wife’s bracelet on his thumb as a ring and consumed forty pounds of meat and ten gallons of wine daily. The comparison was inaccurate, even absurd, but it came to mind, nevertheless.

Spoken in a resounding basso, Dr. Farelli’s phrases seemed to be slung at his cowed listeners as if thrown by a catapult. His damp, black locks hung over his forehead, shaking as his head moved. His dark eyes sparked, his hook nose quivered, his white teeth gleamed, and his protruding jaw dared all disbelief. Beside him, as unremarkable as a slight blemish, sliding lower and lower into the sofa as if sinking into a quicksand patch of inadequacy, was Dr. John Garrett, brown hair and rimless spectacles and lack-lustre countenance slowly fading into the wan beige of the sofa, until both were one, and Farelli seemed quite alone.

Yet Jacobsson tried to judge the phenomenon fairly. This dominance was not of Farelli’s doing. It was invited, nay, desired, by the dozen journalists. In the Italian they sensed excitement, and they wanted to draw upon it and inject it into their routine accounts, so that their stories would be as alive as their subject.

Jacobsson pondered the possible results of this group interview. Did Dr. Garrett realize that he was being made as extinct as the dodo bird? Did he realize what was happening to him?

On the sofa, melted into the fabric, nearly vanished, Dr. John Garrett felt no pain. From the second that he had been introduced to Farelli, his immediate surface anger and antagonism had been blotted up and absorbed by the Italian’s overpowering charm. Thus drained of righteous indignation, he was less man than automaton.

When the interviewing had begun, Garrett had been offered his fair share of questions, and had answered them simply, but then there had been fewer questions, and finally none, as if the audience had made a choice as to the player they preferred. Now all questions were being directed at Farelli, and all replies were being given by him. Oddly, Garrett experienced apathy, not rebellion. To join Farelli, to participate, would seem to be intruding on an enchanting Pirandello play. Gradually, Garrett had become so mesmerized by the Italian’s words and histrionics that he felt he no longer shared the laureate sofa with him, but rather belonged apart, to the press audience, logically listening with them.

Even now he listened, still bound helplessly in the same hypnotic trance of inferiority, as if his contribution to their great work had been a minor accident, and now he wished to make amends through apologetic silence.

‘One asks oneself, after all, what is this organ, the heart, that it is so difficult to replace?’ Farelli was saying. ‘It is a simplified pump, a hollow muscular bag somewhat larger than a tennis ball or my fist, weighing no more than ten ounces. Seventy-two times a minute it beats, perpetually beats, and through it, each minute, pass six quarts of blood. One sees that in its design the heart is simple to duplicate, yes? Though, do not be fooled by its simplicity. For sixty or seventy or eighty years, it pumps with no rest. Where can one buy a machine guaranteed to pump for sixty-seventy-eighty years without failing once?

‘Both Dr. Garrett and I fell into the error of trying to find such a man-made machine to use as a model, a machine that would equal or surpass the living heart. There were many models, of course. For several decades, scientists have been constructing artificial hearts to perform outside the body. One remembers the year 1935, when Dr. Alexis Carrel admitted that he and Colonel Charles Lindbergh had kept alive an animal organ with the first artificial heart made of a pump and coiled glass tube. One remembers Dr. John H. Gibbon, of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, who was among the first, possibly the first, to employ an artificial heart-and-lung machine on a living patient, to keep the patient alive forty-five minutes, while surgery was being done. One remembers Dr. Leland C. Clarke, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, who kept a fireman alive seventy-five minutes with a heart-and-lung machine, while chest surgery was completed.

‘In the world, there have been thirty or forty such artificial heart devices. And other remarkable cardiac devices, too, such as the recent electronic pacemaker. One saw the brilliance of these efforts, and the progress made, but still one-who was a perfectionist-despaired. For all of these machines were temporary devices outside the human body. They could not, in any form, be trusted inside the body-and will not be trusted, until we have discovered perpetual motion. Dr. Garrett and I saw that the practical heart, the one that might prolong or even double longevity, must be alive and mammalian and in the image of the human heart. Here was a goal for a Dr. Frankenstein-but where, my friends, where in the medical profession, was there a Mary Shelley?’

Farelli had spread his broad palms in a gesture of helplessness, and the audience, almost collectively, sighed in distressed understanding of his problem, as a theatre audience might sigh at the dilemma of the beset hero. Farelli cast a friendly glance at Garrett, who sat agape, like a boy child waiting for Father to turn the page.

Farelli met the attention of his audience again. He would not let slack the communicative bond between them. ‘The goal was clear, but so, also, were the steep hurdles. What kept us from grafting lower mammalian hearts into human bodies? Preliminary attempts had been made on dogs, in England, in America, and the animals had survived three weeks. Why not men and women? The hurdles were these-to find an animal heart of similar structural design to the human heart, to find a means of storing this organ, to find a workable operative technique, to find a way of preventing irreversible ischemic damage to the transplanted heart-yes, I could go on and on. These were hurdles, but they were not the largest. The largest was the one I speak of last-to find means of preventing the rejection mechanism of the cells from marching out to attack and crush all invading material trying to enter the body.

‘Those of us who dreamed of an eternal body spent our long nights of lonely strategy devising means to overcome these hurdles. In the Istituto Superiore di Sanita, in Rome, I did my research and experiments. In the Rosenthal Medical Centre, in Pasadena, my admirable colleague, Dr. Garrett, did his research and experiments. We met our difficulties, one by one through the years, and we overcame them. Blood for the brain during surgery? We used a plastic booster heart, a pump oxygenator, outside the body. Clotting? Anticoagulants, of course. The replacement heart? One grafted from a mammal near the weight of the patient. Storage of the replacement heart? Perfusion and cooling, now useful for several hours, but already progress is being made on a special drug which will arrest metabolism. Suturing of blood vessels? Prosthetic materials like Teflon or dacron, or sometimes spare blood vessels from human cadavers. Technique of suturing? Our adaptation of a vessel-suturing instrument, resembling a miniature sewing machine, first used by the Russians at the Sklifosovskii Institute. And the rejecting mechanism? Ah, here the fight was the longest. We employed massive radiation, various radiomimetic drugs, steroids-and discarded them-and went on-and in the end we found the combination, Dr. Garrett in Pasadena, and I in Rome, to neutralize the enemies of our transplanted hearts. We found what my colleague has so aptly named Anti-reactive Substance S.’ He paused. ‘I have been too verbose for your purposes-and too brief for mine-but that is the answer to what was asked, that was our long road to Stockholm.’

Farelli settled back and enjoyed the intermission of journalists recording his story.

Garrett, bewildered and muted by the Italian’s glib locution, watched Farelli find a lozenge and place it on his tongue. Spread before him, Garrett observed the reporters writing. What were they writing? Farelli said, Farelli said, Farelli said, the renowned Farelli, the incredible Farelli, the genius Farelli. In the centre row, a lady’s hand waved, her bracelet jangling.

Garrett stirred himself from the long sleep. ‘Yes?’ he called out weakly.

‘Dr. Farelli-’ replied the lady’s masculine voice. Her demand buried Garrett deeper into the obscure corner of the sofa.

‘Dr. Farelli, I am Stockholms-Tidningen,’ she said. ‘I would like from your own lips the story of your first successful case.’

‘You have all read about it,’ said Farelli with a self-depreciating gesture. ‘It has been made romantic enough.’

‘Yes, but in your words, no matter how briefly-’

‘Very well. I was at the Istituto, early one afternoon, preparing to transplant a mammalian heart into a St. Bernard dog, for the benefit of foreign physicians en route to Milan for a medical convention. In the midst of my preparations, I was informed of an important emergency case. The patient, in his seventies, was a great international figure. He was an English expatriate, a playwright, who had known James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde and Lily Langtry, and for some years had been living in Ravenna. He was on a business visit to Rome, and he had suffered a coronary thrombosis only a few blocks from the Istituto. I rushed to save him, but there seemed little hope. His common-law wife, an Italian lady from a titled family, a lady I had met socially and who had attended my lectures, knew of my dreams and begged me to replace her playwright’s dying heart with the mammalian one I had ready for my exhibition experiment. Even as she signed the release, and my equipment was being set up in surgery, the playwright expired on the table. I had no more than five minutes to open his chest and begin a cardiac massage, while my anesthesiologist established an airway. When the patient had first been wheeled in, expiring, I had been frightened. But now that he was dead, all hesitancy left me. I worked like ten demons. Massage immediately reactivated his heart, his breathing, so no brain damage was incurred. Next, I put into use the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. After ninety minutes, I was able to effect the transplantation of the new mammalian heart into his chest. I then connected his circulatory system to the new heart, closed his chest, and resumed treatment with my anti-reactive drug. In three months, he was on his feet-and just before coming to your gracious city I received, by air post, an advance copy of his latest play-his best yet!’

The Stockholms-Tidningen lady clapped her hands, and several other reporters joined in applause.

Farelli cast his eyes downward, modestly, and then he looked up. ‘That was my first case. Since then, I have made twenty additional human heart transplantations, on qualified patients, and I am proud to say that there has not been one failure. So much for my work. Now, I am certain, you would like to hear my fellow Nobel laureate tell you about his.’ He opened his hand towards his companion on the sofa. ‘Please, Dr. Garrett-’

The sudden invitation to share honours and newspaper space had caught Garrett completely off guard. He had been dazzled by Farelli’s account, and felt shrunken and wizened after the applause. Now, to follow Farelli was as impossible as to conclude a story that had been half told by Scheherazade.

‘I-I don’t know if-’ He found himself speaking to Farelli, and he realized that this was all wrong. He faced the reporters, and imagined that he saw impatience, even hostility, in their faces. Desperately, he sought a thread of coherent narrative. ‘I was in the hospital in Pasadena-it’s in California-I had my calf’s heart and had been working on a canine specimen-it was late, after dinner-this truck driver-sixty-seven-Henry M., I called him in my paper-I made the heterograft of the organ-and he’s alive today. It was-there were obstacles, still-’

Garrett became aware that one reporter, not listening to him, had completely turned his back to consult with another reporter behind him. He heard the rustling of paper. There was an excessive amount of coughing. A chair scraped the floor. They wanted Scheherazade, Garrett knew. The inattention flustered him. He was defeated.

‘-anyway, it was a gratifying experience, and the reception was gratifying, and I was gratified.’ The record needle was stuck and Garrett wanted to quit. He quit. ‘That was my first case,’ he concluded lamely.

The waiter appeared with his tray of drinks, to which cigarettes had been added. Farelli accepted a sherry, and, dazed, Garrett took one, too, though he detested the drink. The waiter circulated among the press, and Farelli sipped his sherry, and Garrett did the same.

Garrett tried to think. Had Farelli deferred to him, offered him the chance to state his own case, out of geniune respect? Or had the Italian been sensitive to the fact that he had been putting on a one-man show and felt a pang of guilt? Or had the Italian elected to display his superiority by deigning, on his terms, at his command, to allow a lesser royalty to speak?

Considering Farelli’s motive, Garrett emerged from his hypnotic trance, reminding himself that beside him sat the usurper, the rival, the enemy, a crafty Machiavelli of medicine who must be battled word for word, to the death. He had been given an opportunity, moments before, and he had fumbled it badly, out of surprise, out of self-imposed inferiority. This must not happen again, and it would not. Farelli was a braggart, a highwayman, an alchemist. He, Garrett, had been first in the field, first acknowledged and first recognized, and now, because he was humble and kind, he had allowed the Italian to take the lead through dubious forensics. He must sharpen his wits, become a recognized member of the press meeting, and hold his own. He gulped the distasteful sherry, pushed himself to the very tip of the sofa, like an anchor man on a relay team awaiting the baton, and poised himself for the next questions.

A distant hand went up. It belonged to the Il Messaggero man from Rome. ‘Dr. Farelli, did you and Dr. Garrett work together, and if so, to what extent?’

‘I will answer that!’ Garrett shouted, and then, horrified at the loudness of his voice and at the suddenness with which he had attracted the attention of the whole room, he modulated his next utterance to a whisper. ‘We did not work together at all.’

Farelli waited until he was sure that Garrett had nothing more to say, and when he was sure, he added his own comment, addressing the reporters. ‘Dr. Garrett and I, unfortunately, never set eyes upon each other until one hour ago. We never corresponded. We knew nothing of the progress or details of each other’s work-except, of course, what we read in the scientific journals.’

‘Is that not unusual?’ asked the Il Messaggero man.

‘Not at all, not at all,’ said Farelli. ‘There are many examples, in science, of similar parallel researches. I will submit two examples. Years ago, in Rochester, Minnesota, a biochemist, Dr. Edward Kendall, worked on secretions of the adrenal glands. At the same time, in Basle, Switzerland, another biochemist, Dr. Tadeus Reichstein, also worked on adrenal glands. By 1936, both biochemists, independent of one another, had discovered a new hormone, the same one, which later led to cortisone injections for arthritis. In 1950, these two men, and a third, Dr. Philip Hench, made a three-way share of the Nobel Prize in medicine for “discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex”. Similarly, in 1956, Dr. Nikolai Semenov, of Soviet Russia, and Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, of Great Britain, won your chemistry prize, shared it, for work in the field of reaction rates-the mechanism of chemical reactions-although they experimented separately, far apart, but going along on the same researches.’ He paused. ‘You see, it happens. Dr. Garrett and I are not so unusual.’

‘Gentlemen, we are all wondering about the future,’ said the Associated Press man. ‘What will your heart transplant eventually mean to all of us and our children?’

Garrett was not certain if Farelli had deferred to him once more, and politely held back, or if he, himself, had merely leaped to the reply more rapidly. In either event, he had not given himself time to consider the question before answering it. His only objective now was to have the floor on his own. ‘That-that is a difficult question,’ Garrett began, ‘because it requires a prediction.’ He would make a joke. That would even him up with the Italian. He made the joke. ‘After all, Nostradamus never won the Nobel Prize.’

He waited for the loving burst of laughter that would greet his sally. There was none. He felt humiliated and undignified, and he tried to recover. ‘It is too early to guess at the future of our discovery. At present, the transplant can only succeed in limited blood types. The two of us have attempted the heterograft thirty-eight times, each time successfully, but still, in science, thirty-eight times is a conservative number. We are too deeply engaged in the present to give our thoughts to the future.’

He liked the roll of his last sentence, and examined the audience covertly to see if it was being preserved. It was not. The pencils of the press remained stilled. Disheartened, he withdrew, and was not surprised to hear the Italian speak.

‘I should like to extend my American friend’s remarks a little further, if I may,’ said Farelli. ‘Dr. Garrett is a scientist, as am I, and naturally reticent. Everything he has said is correct, of course. Our work is in its pioneer phase. Yet I think this much can be added-both of us have our private, and similar, visions of the future. We are working towards the same end-and the end, with the Lord’s approval, is really the beginning-it is the immortality of man. A dream? Sì, sì, a dream, but now more, now a scientific possibility. As our work is improved, spread, the longevity of human beings will be doubled and trebled, and-who can say?-one day man, bolstered by artificial organs, may live forever.’

Farelli paused, and the pencils moved steadily, and Garrett was dismayed. Garrett was not dismayed at his personal failure alone-his reply had been dry and colourless, and the Italian’s had been a fairy tale that made copy-but also at his rival’s instinctive perception of what laymen wanted to hear. Farelli’s tactics, Garrett told himself, were not worthy of the medical profession. Was it right to feed them pap, optimistic tabloid pap that could not be supported, in order to make headlines? What would Dr. Keller and the therapy group in Los Angles think of all this? Perhaps the psychiatrist might disagree with him, and state that great scientists must have great dreams to justify the minute drudgery of the laboratory and thus give themselves lofty goals far beyond the immediate scalpel and surgery room. He prepared to argue with his psychiatrist, but was interrupted by Farelli’s basso, as it boomed again.

‘If we cannot be satisfied with our way of life and our society,’ Farelli was continuing, ‘we cannot afford to be satisfied with ourselves, with man himself. It is not cynical or irreligious-the Lord forgive me, if it is-to observe that man is an imperfect mammal. In the age of the machine, compared to the machine, man is poorly and frivolously designed and built. Think of a heavy machine standing precariously upright on two thin legs. Think of a machine, that must have vision, limited to two small eyes on one half of its head, instead of three, four or five all around. Think of a machine with wasted, useless parts, parts of the brain, an appendix, extra toes. Worst of all, think of a machine whose manufacturer gives no guarantee on moving parts, and who sells his apparatus at enormous cost without the promise of replacement parts. We want to improve on this machine. Man is a marvel, but he must be made more durable. Too many years, too much love, and too much money, are expended on each man to have him degenerate, part by part, and waste away so quickly. Schopenhauer once said, “It is clear that as our walking is admittedly nothing but a constantly prevented falling, so the life of our bodies is nothing but a constantly prevented dying, an ever-postponed death.” It is true, but it is wrong, and we-those of us in physiology and medicine-defy it. Our goal is immortal man, and it will never be less!’

Once again, applause rang through the small room, and even Garrett was moved beyond his resentment. As the clapping of hands ceased, and the pencils moved once more, Garrett castigated himself for his lack of imagination. Why could he not speak up in this way? Why was he handicapped with so narrow a funnel vision? Why was he not poet as well as scientist? Yet, answering the last, and applauding himself slightly, he reminded himself that the scientist’s business was science, not poetry, and that this was his strength and his rival’s weakness.

A feature writer, a woman, from Svenska Dagbladet, had the floor. ‘Do other medical researchers entertain your same goal of the future? Are there others attempting to improve your findings in heart transplants?’

Garrett, grasping for another chance, replied immediately. ‘Many others have learned our techniques. The work goes ahead in six nations, other than the United States and Italy.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ added Farelli, ‘one of the most important extensions of our work is right here in your native Sweden, in Stockholm itself.’

There was a murmur of interest in the room, largely from the Swedish press members, and someone called out, ‘Can you be specific?’

‘I am proud to give credit where credit is due,’ said Farelli. ‘Among the first to take up heart grafting, after our discoveries, was Dr. Erik Öhman, a member of your magnificent Royal Caroline Medico-Chirurgical Institute. He has already accomplished three transplantations, and will be doing more.’

Garrett bounced on the sofa, steaming with rage. He felt cheated and robbed by an unscrupulous business partner. Dr. Öhman was Garrett’s personal property, his protégé even, and here was Farelli stealing this possession and making it his own. It was unfair, blatant larceny, an obvious trick to butter up the Swedish press, and ingratiate himself with the general public by making them proud of their own native-born surgeon. Garrett had no objections to that aspect of it, only that he, himself, should have been the spokesman on Sweden’s behalf, linking Dr. Öhman with his own name, as Öhman would have preferred. Why had he not done it? Why had he not been clever enough?

‘Are you acquainted with our Dr. Öhman?’ the woman from Svenska Dagbladet was inquiring of Farelli.

‘Not personally, I regret to say. I have read about him in the medical journals and have been pleased to see a Swedish doctor carrying on our work.’

Garrett could contain himself no longer. ‘I know him!’ he cried out.

‘You have collaborated with Dr. Öhman?’ the Svenska Dagbladet woman wanted to know.

‘Not exactly collaborated, but-’

‘Have you met him?’

‘Not yet, but-’

‘How do you know him, then?’ the woman asked piercingly.

‘Through correspondence,’ said Garrett weakening. ‘I-I have tried to help him.’ He realized that this might sound condescending to Swedish listeners. He tried to improve upon it. ‘I’ve made available to him all my findings-to add to his own-which have been most creative-his own, I mean. I admire him very much. I intend to meet him this week.’

‘Uh-Dr. Garrett-’ It was the Expressen reporter.

‘Yes, sir?’ Garrett was alert, pleased to be recognized before Farelli, at last.

‘I am sure that you are familiar with the research of many renowned men of medicine, today and in the past. Can you think of any great names that have been overlooked by our Nobel Committee, any doctors who justly deserved the award and did not receive it?’

Garrett could think of several such names, but his natural timidity prevented him from putting them forward. The Nobel Foundation had been generous to him. He did not want to insult its judges. ‘No,’ he said, at last, ‘I can’t think of one great name your committee has ever overlooked. I concur with their decisions completely. Since 1901, they have honoured all who deserved to be honoured.’

He relaxed, satisfied with himself. He had accomplished what Farelli had tried to accomplish-he had given the Swedes pride in their judgment-and he had done a better job of it.

‘Dr. Farelli.’ It was the Expressen reporter again. ‘Are you in agreement with your fellow laureate?’

The Italian smiled at Garrett, and then at the press. ‘I believe Dr. Garrett and I are in accord on most matters, but I am afraid we are not so on this one. You wish to know if your Nobel Committee has overlooked any great doctors, deserving of the prize in the past? Yes, indeed they have. Two unfortunate omissions come to mind. One was an American. I think Dr. Harvey Cushing, of Boston, deserved a Nobel Prize for techniques he introduced in brain surgery. The Caroline Institute had thirty-eight opportunities to reward him, and failed to do so. The other omission, that of an Austrian, was even more serious. I refer to Dr. Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis. I find his neglect by the Nobel Committee, between 1901 and 1939, incomprehensible. I cannot imagine why he was not honoured. Because he had once dabbled in hypnotism? Because organized medicine in Austria fought him? Because psychoanalysis was not an exact science? All mere quibbling. He remains the colossus of our century. His original discoveries in the field of psychology and mental disturbance have enriched our medicine. Those are the only black marks against the Caroline Institute in an otherwise brilliant record of judgment. I am proud to belong to their honour roll.’

Garrett had listened to all of this with an increasing sense of shame at his own dishonesty and lack of candour. With envy, he watched the scribbling pencils among the press corps. He glanced at Farelli’s profile, and hated its Latin smugness more than ever before. He hated Farelli for his own weakness and the other’s unerring showmanship. He hated Farelli, an Italian, for extolling the virtues of an American, Dr. Cushing, and thus marking Garrett’s own lack of patriotism. He hated Farelli, an extrovert, for robbing him of Dr. Freud, an introvert’s property, a property that was justly his own every time he paid ten dollars to Dr. Keller for another group therapy session.

He hated Farelli, but it seemed useless, like abominating an overwhelming force of nature.

Garrett closed his eyes and sank back into the sofa. His mind sought not justice, but survival. He must crush the Italian soon, or himself be liquidated from existence, as he was being liquidated this afternoon. The necessity to act was clear. Only the act itself was cloudy. Yet here he was, the discoverer of the means to transplant an animal heart, the winner of the Nobel Prize, an acclaimed and approved genuine champion pitted against a windy Cagliostro. Quality would win. The odds always favoured the champion.

He opened his eyes, now burning with confidence. He would find a way. He saw Farelli’s profile, and its inevitable defeat, and at last, he felt sorry for the man…

In all the Nobel press conferences that Count Bertil Jacobsson had attended in the past, and they were many, he had invariably enjoyed most the interviews with the literary laureates. The others, those starring the physicists, chemists, doctors, had always possessed merit, offering stimulation and high purpose, but somehow their language and content had little to do with the world of ordinary men. You admired, but you did not identify yourself with them. Who could identify with a neutron or the exclusion principle or colloid solutions or enzymes or aortic mechanisms or the citric acid cycle? Literature, on the other hand, was another matter. Almost everyone could read, and if you did not read, you could appreciate the offering of a book through secondary media like the stage and films and wireless and television. Too, you could identify with authors, poets, historians, for even if you did not write books, you wrote diaries and letters and scraps of messages and telegrams, and if you could not write, you told fiction to your wife or tall tales to the children at bedtime. And, if you were Count Bertil Jacobsson, why, you wrote your precious Notes.

These were the thoughts in Jacobsson’s mind, that spurred his anticipation, as he crossed from the medical press conference to the larger private lounge, where the literary press conference was being staged. Another thing, Jacobsson told himself: the literary interviews were better sport because the authors were often used to the limelight, whereas few of the scientists had known attention outside of their academic circles, and so authors were more clever about public appearances. Furthermore, except for the literary minority of cultists and precious dilettantes who rarely reached Stockholm anyway, most authors were articulate, uninhibited, contentious, and unafraid of controversy. Scientists, too often, were the opposite. They behaved as prophets of the Lord’s Word, and chilled the respectful press into reticence. This was not always so, of course. Sometimes, it was the author who performed as if his current work in progress were the Sermon on the Mount, and the scientist was earthy and argumentative. But more often, you could wager on the author as being the better copy.

Opening the door to the lounge, Jacobsson wondered to which camp the new literary laureate, Andrew Craig, belonged.

He had hardly seen Craig since the novelist’s arrival in the morning. The sister-in-law had been attractive enough, although inclined to resemble somewhat Shakespeare’s shrewish Katharina of Padua. As to Craig, Jacobsson had not been in his presence long enough to form an opinion. Later, after they had left the Grand Hotel, Krantz had been quick to assert his minor disapproval. He had defined Craig’s withdrawn silences as snobbery. But then, Krantz did not like Americans in general. On the other hand, Ingrid Påhl, who had breakfasted with the visiting novelist, had been enthusiastic without reservation. Ingrid’s enthusiasms for fellow members of her craft were frequently misplaced, and grew from a loyalty to their common vocation, but this time (Jacobsson believed) her judgment was more profound.

Jacobsson entered the lounge at the moment of interlude. Craig’s press conference had been going on for one hour and ten minutes, and now he and the journalists were accepting drinks before the last curtain. Unlike the other rooms, this one was a scramble of chairs and occupants irregularly placed. The gathering, even larger than that attending Professor Stratman, was the most informal now meeting in the Swedish Press Club.

In the far corner of the room, below the wide window, Craig sat alone on a spacious cream-coloured couch. Fresh whisky in one hand, brier pipe in the other, stilt legs crossed, he resembled a giant blue heron, species American. The elongated countenance, beneath the unkempt black hair, Jacobsson observed, seemed more gaunt than this morning, so that the ridges of facial muscle between cheeks and jaw were more apparent. He is tired, Jacobsson decided, but relaxed; he will get through the rest of it.

All about Craig, in unsymmetrical semi-circles, were the press people in their folding chairs, smoking, drinking, conversing with one another. Jacobsson guessed that the efficient Mrs. Steen had undoubtedly organized the chairs in even rows, but during the excitement of the interview their owners had pulled them out of line, to hear and view their subject better.

Only a few of the chairs were unoccupied, and Jacobsson selected one near the exit, where his presence would go unremarked. Quietly seating himself next to a chain-smoking and youthful female, who wore a Robin Hood hat and blinked her eyes unceasingly, he waited for the interview to resume.

‘Pardon me, sir, but are you Count Jacobsson?’

The question came from the youthful female, and Jacobsson slid around in his chair to meet her full face. It was a humourless visage that he now encountered, one given the appearance of severity by the sharp auburn bangs on her forehead and by two pencilled lines of lipstick, rimming the mouth and serving carelessly for flesh lips that were non-existent.

‘Yes, I am Count Jacobsson,’ he said.

She transferred her loose-leaf pad to her left hand and extended her right. ‘I’m Sue Wiley,’ she said. ‘I’ve been sent here by Consolidated Newspapers of New York. You were pointed out to me, when I got off the plane with the Garretts.’

Jacobsson inclined his head courteously. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you. We have your credentials at the Foundation.’

‘I’m not here for a one-shot, Count Jacobsson. It’s a tremendous assignment.’ Her visage was alive with dedication. ‘I’m going to do fourteen-fourteen articles-on the Nobel Prizes, past and present. They’ll break in fifty-three papers. Isn’t that something?’

‘I could not be more pleased,’ said Jacobsson. He tried to place Consolidated Newspapers, tried to sort them out of the classification of memory, and then suddenly, he remembered. Consolidated Newspapers was a features syndicate, servicing America and Great Britain, much devoted to exclamation points and inside stories and rude sensationalism. Once they had issued an account-unfortunately published throughout Sweden, also-implying that Dr. Albert Schweitzer of Lambaréné, was arrogant and vain, basically disinterested in individual human beings, and that his hospital in Africa was unclean. Jacobsson had been offended by the appalling account. His own memory of Schweitzer, with whom he had dined in Stockholm before 1924, when the universal man had been doing organ recitals and lectures to raise money for his hospital, had been highly favourable. He had affected Jacobsson in a way that clergymen often affected him: uneasiness in the presence of someone in touch with metaphysical secrets beyond our grasp, someone deceptively in our image yet known to be a favoured son of God. Now Jacobsson tried to remember who had maligned this genius, this St. Francis with his reverence for life, but could remember only that the account had been credited to Consolidated Newspapers of America. If Miss Wiley was from this same syndicate, his guard had better be up.

‘-would be impossible without your full co-operation,’ she was saying, and Jacobsson realized that he had not been listening. ‘This isn’t the usual ephemeral newspaper nonsense,’ she went on. ‘I want it to be so thorough, so correct, that students reading it will feel they are learning all there is to learn of Alfred Nobel, your Foundation, the history of the prize giving, the stories of the many winners, the ceremonies, and so forth. I want to do full profiles on this year’s winners. Make the series topical, you know. I’ll want to see each of them personally. Do you think you could arrange it?’

‘I’m afraid, Miss Wiley, that would be somewhat outside my province. I would suggest you contact the parties personally.’

‘I’ll want to talk to you, too, and loads of the Nobel judges and officials and so forth. Surely, that kind of co-operation is in your province?’

‘Yes, it is. The only difficulty will be the matter of time. I am certain you understand. This is Nobel Week. All year, we aim towards this one week. We are hosts, and we have duties and functions. The demands on our time are great.’

‘I can’t think of anything more important than what I’m trying to do for you.’

Jacobsson smiled bleakly. ‘We appreciate it, Miss Wiley. Do not misunderstand. We are here to serve you. I would suggest you telephone me at the Foundation tomorrow morning. After ten. I shall do my best to arrange what I can for you.’ Jacobsson heard his own voice, and realized that the room was beginning to quieten. He looked off. ‘I believe the interview is commencing again.’

Straightening in his chair, Jacobsson remembered one point and was curious about it. He leaned towards Sue Wiley. ‘How has it gone so far?’ he inquired. ‘How has Mr. Craig been?’

Sue Wiley blinked, sniffed, and looked off. ‘I don’t like him,’ she said. ‘He’s too disdainful.’

Across the room, setting down his empty glass on the end table beside the couch, Andrew Craig, preparing to endure the last portion of the press conference, felt no emotion akin to disdain. If some few, like Sue Wiley, had misinterpreted his too quick, too curt replies or his over casual attitude, as scorn for them, the rabble journalists, and their stupid questions, it was an unfortunate accident of behaviour. As a matter of fact, Andrew Craig, when he was able to pin his mind to the activity at hand, had been favourably impressed by the intelligence of his inquisitors and the quality of their inquiries.

What had affected Craig, shortly after his arrival in the Swedish Press Club, was not scorn for Grub Street, but rather self-despair. If he hoped, as Leah and Lucius hoped, that the change of scene and the high honour accorded him would revitalize his interest in life, in creativity, he was wrong, and they were wrong. The laureate Craig was a mockery of the other man he had once been. The reception and adulation, also, seemed intended for someone else, someone who had written The Perfect State and Armageddon, and not for him, this day, an impostor, an impersonator of the real Andrew Craig. His attendance at the Press Club seemed even more futile. The questions asked were being asked of another man, and his replies were by proxy. The other man might have cared. He did not. It all seemed wasted, like giving information for a story that would never be printed.

The fresh drink had helped, and he uncrossed his legs, and put the unfilled pipe in his mouth, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, trying to appear interested, determined to do better by that other man who had written those books.

The room was attentive, and the interrogation resumed.

‘Mr. Craig,’ said the man from the Stockholm Dagens Nyheter, ‘is it true that you are only thirty-nine years of age?’

‘Only?’ echoed Craig with surprise. ‘Since when is anyone only thirty-nine?’

‘In terms of the Nobel literary award, sir, that is extreme youth. I believe you are the youngest winner to date. Previously, Rudyard Kipling was the youngest. He was forty-two when he came here in 1907, and Albert Camus was the second youngest, forty-four when he came here in 1957.’

‘Well, I assure you, I’ve established no record,’ said Craig. ‘I would allow Mr. Kipling to remain your juvenile lead. He was always younger than forty-two, and I’ve always been older than thirty-nine.’

‘Thank you on behalf of the British Empire,’ called the man from Reuter.

Everyone laughed, and Craig smiled boyishly, and good cheer was restored to the room.

‘I wonder,’ said the man from Dagens Nyheter, ‘why our committees honour so many young scientists and old writers? Would you have any comment on that?’

‘I didn’t know you favoured young scientists,’ said Craig. ‘It’s hard for me to imagine. When I see news pictures of them, they always seem wrinkled and stooped, as though they invented seniority to give you confidence in their magic.’

‘Quite the contrary,’ the man from Dagens Nyheter persisted. ‘The Nobel Prize-winning physicist in 1960, Donald Glaser, was thirty-four years old. Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee, of your country, who divided the physics prize in 1957, were thirty-five and thirty-one, respectively. Dr. Frederick Banting, of Canada, who won the medical prize in 1923, was just thirty-two years of age. William L. Bragg, of England, who won the physics prize in 1915, was only twenty-five. I believe that is the record. But you are the first winner of the Nobel Prize in literature under forty. Can you explain that?’

‘I should imagine the reason for this may be found in the nature of the awards,’ said Craig. ‘You give all your science prizes for a single discovery. A man may make this discovery in his twenties or thirties as easily as in his fifties or sixties. But you give the literary award not for one work, but for a body of work. It takes a long time to build up a list of books. It’s taken me thirty-nine years to write four novels, and you say I’m the youngest. Most writers are elderly gentlemen by the time they have produced sufficient quantity to be judged. Also, I believe, writers ripen more slowly than scientists. A brilliant physicist can often display his genius all at once, at an early age. Experience is less important to him than flash perception and inspiration. Writers, no matter how brilliant, are immature and callow when they are young. Words are not enough. Life provides their materials, and usually they are not good enough until they have lived enough.’ He half smiled. ‘Living enough takes time.’

‘Despite the necessity of the ageing process, do you not think too many old authors are given the prize?’ asked the Dagens Nyheter man. ‘Many of us believe Alfred Nobel meant his prize money to help the struggling and promising young, and did not want it wasted on the advanced in years who are usually secure and perhaps no longer productive. Nobel once said, “As a rule, I’d rather take care of the stomachs of the living than the glory of the departed.” Another time, he said that he wanted “to help dreamers, for they find it hard to get on in life.” Do not these statements imply an interest in aiding younger artists who lack means?’

‘I hope so,’ said Craig with amusement, ‘I hope that is what Nobel wanted-for, by your standards, I am young-and, by my standards, l lack means.’

The Dagens Nyheter man would not be put off. ‘Then why do our committees pour all their funds into the laps of old men who do not need it? The first seven literary winners averaged seventy years of age! Anatole France was seventy-seven when he doddered in here for the Ceremony and cheque; and his countryman, André Gide, was seventy-eight. Sir Winston Churchill was seventy-nine. Why does our Swedish Academy do this? I do not think it is fair. We wish your opinion, Mr. Craig.’

‘It comes down to the purpose of the award,’ said Craig carefully, ‘and that was not defined by Nobel and has never been clear since. I’m not sure I agree that the handling of the literary award is as unfair as you imply. I don’t think age should be the issue at all-only merit-and older writers, proved writers, generally have more merit and deserve more honours. This may be playing it safe, true enough. But honouring younger men, simply because they are younger and promising, may be equally unfair. They may not improve, may not endure-indeed, may retrogress. I have heard that your Academy considers Sinclair Lewis a case in point. I’m no Pollyanna, and I’m not given to toadying, but all things considered, I think your Swedish Academy is doing the right thing. I’m sorry I can’t agree with you, but that’s how I feel. Call the Nobel Prize in literature an old-age pension, if you will, but I think that is better than turning it into a young man’s subsidy.’ He might not receive the most sympathetic write-up from the Dagens Nyheter, he told himself, but it did not matter. His attention was diverted to someone else’s upraised hand. ‘Yes?’

The young male correspondent, with the short-cropped beard, was standing. He introduced himself as representing Sweden’s Bookseller Magazine.

‘Mr. Craig, past winners of the literary award, in recent years, have often stated-whether out of honesty or modesty-that they were less deserving than some of their contemporaries. Sinclair Lewis, in his public speech here-that was back in 1930-felt that James Branch Cabell, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, all were Americans more deserving of the Nobel Prize than he. Six years later, when Pearl Buck was notified of our award, she called it incredible and ridiculous, and stated that the honour really belonged to Dreiser. In 1954, Ernest Hemingway said that Carl Sandburg, Bernard Berenson, or Isak Dinesen should have had the award before him. Three years later, Albert Camus said, “Had I been on the Swedish jury, I would have voted for Malraux.” This brings us to Andrew Craig. What other author alive would you consider as deserving as, or more deserving than, yourself of the honour you are receiving here?’

Craig struggled with his conscience briefly. Leah had begged him not to derogate himself. But honesty forbade evasion or silence. Yet he hated to name names. There were so many. Well, without fully exposing his inferiority, why not complete candour?

‘I cannot name one author more deserving than I-because there are half a hundred who should have this prize before me. There are at least ten in the United States, perhaps fifteen in England and France, several in Japan, and many more elsewhere. I can think of several in Scandinavia, certainly one right here in Sweden.’

‘Would you name Sweden’s candidate?’ asked the young man from Bookseller Magazine.

‘I’m reluctant to name names-second-guess your Academy-but I will say that I’ve read two novels by your Gunnar Gottling, and for all his irreverence, explicit sexuality, crudity, he is a major talent.’

‘He does not qualify in certain areas.’

‘Well, I don’t know the facts,’ said Craig, ‘and I have no wish to argue in favour of authors who should be here in my place. You asked if there were others that I thought should be here in my stead, and I said yes. I’m sure no author can ever be certain that he alone, above all others, deserves the world’s highest literary compliment. Nor, I am sure, can any annual award satisfy the entire public.’

The Svenska Dagbladet reporter had risen. ‘Mr. Craig, I suppose you are acquainted with our Nobel machinery? Former Nobel winners are allowed to nominate. French and Spanish and other recognized Academies are allowed to nominate. Professors of literature in universities are allowed to nominate. And, of course, our own Swedish Academy has given itself eligibility to nominate. These nominations are submitted in person or by cable or by letter. I am sure you know all of this-’

‘No,’ said Craig truthfully, ‘I had no idea of all these formal preliminaries.’

‘Of course, I am leading up to a question,’ said the Svenska Dagbladet reporter. ‘Please bear with me a moment longer. Early in 1950, I am informed, there were over one hundred nominations for the literary prize from abroad. Many were from America, and not one included the name of William Faulkner, of Oxford, Mississippi. Consequently, our own Swedish Academy nominated Mr. Faulkner, and then voted him the prize for 1949, which had been held open. I am also informed, from an excellent source, that you won your prize in the very same fashion. Did you know that?’

‘I had not heard it, no.’

‘You were not nominated by your fellow countrymen in America or any other nation abroad. You were nominated right here in Stockholm, by our Swedish Academy, who then later voted you the prize.’

‘Again, I can only say I am grateful-now doubly so.’

‘The point I am leading up to is-why was it left for a Swedish jury, so far from your homeland, to introduce your name? In short, why are you so neglected-unappreciated, I should say-in your native America?’

Craig shook his head. ‘You’ve posed a tough question. Well, I’ll do my best. For years, Faulkner was relatively obscure because his admirable Yoknapatawpha County was obscure-in the eyes of critics and public alike. Happily, your Swedish jury, with the insight of distance, found him less so. My output has been relatively neglected, in my own country, for similar reasons.’

‘Obscurity?’

‘Yes, I think so. I write about the present, but I write about the present in terms of the past. Most Americans have been conditioned to believe that historical fiction should be romantic and escapist. To them I am an odd duck, out of joint with time. My historical fiction does not fit the popular mould. It is neither romantic nor escapist, but puzzlingly realistic, and touches their contemporary lives. It worries them. It confuses them. They find my method obscure, and they turn their backs on it. For some reason, which is a mystery to me, your Swedish jurors understood what I was doing and admired it. I was fortunate to find understanding an ocean and half a land away from where I live.’

The London Spectator man was on his feet. ‘Mr. Craig, you were especially cited for The Perfect State and Armageddon. The Academy called them “writings in support of humanitarian ideals”. Can you elucidate, in your own words, the humanitarian ideals these two novels represent?’

‘Certainly. In The Perfect State, I was saying that communal government cannot work unless the nature of man is changed. I doubted if the nature of man would change, or even that it should. I was saying that the socialized state-now exemplified by Communism-was basically anti-man, and could not dominate man, and that man would fight it and survive it. I was saying this was true in Plato’s day, and it is true in our day. As to Armageddon, I was simply adding my voice to many, to remind readers of the magnitude of catastrophe conceivable on this planet, and of their own microbe-insignificance and helplessness in the face of it. It was as if ants had finally invented their own insecticide. I was pointing out that, at best, man is a frail, wispy creation, with an uneasy and precarious foothold on earth, and that he had better think twice about outdoing the Maker in competing for destruction. Perhaps the Maker challenged man with Pompeii and Herculaneum and the Lisbon ’quake and Krakatoa, but He did not obliterate him. By imitating God, without God’s wisdom and mercy, man can destroy his kind forever with nuclear weapons, his homemade Krakatoas.’

The La Prensa man from Buenos Aires looked up from his pad with a question. ‘Sir, do you have another work in progress?’

‘Too long in progress, I’m afraid.’

‘Is that the novel entitled Return to Ithaca that I’ve heard about recently?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is this also a novel set in an historical frame?’

‘No, it’s modern, it’s contemporary.’

‘Isn’t this the first time you’ve gone modern? What made you change?’

Craig hesitated. He had always wanted to be a part of his time, and had been afraid, and it had been Harriet who had encouraged the project. But Harriet was the dead past, and they were wanting to know about the present. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘except that’s the way this new idea came to me. Possibly, too, like most writers, I felt I’d been in a rut and wanted a change of scenery. I guess I got tired of my costume parties-decided that the Mardi Gras was over-wanted to remove the mask and show the world my own face. I’m not sure. I’m just repeating the first thoughts that come to mind.’

‘Sir, can you tell us what the new novel is about?’ It was the Japanese gentleman from Yomiuri Shimbun.

‘This much-a twentieth-century Odysseus, his wanderings through the labyrinth of life, fending off its monster perils, fighting attacks-from within and without-on his liberty to speak and think, on his right to worship alien gods or none at all, on his ethics and moralities in averting poverty. It’s an oft-told tale, but each generation must tell it in its own way. I hope I live long enough to write it.’

A lady from Aftonbladet spoke up. ‘What authors, now regarded as classical, influenced you?’

‘I won’t vouch for any direct influences, but I know who has interested me and moved me. Will that do? Very well. The writings of Tolstoy, Stendhal, Flaubert and Sir Richard Burton meant a good deal to me. The life Shelley lived, that rather than his poetry, was valuable to me.’

‘Are you aware, sir, that Shelley was also one of Alfred Nobel’s favourites?’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘Oh, yes, he adored Shelley’s philosophy and rebellion. Nobel’s only published book, a tragic play, Nemesis, was based on the same theme Shelley used in The Cenci.’

‘I’d certainly like to read Nobel’s play,’ said Craig.

‘I’m afraid that would be almost impossible,’ said the Aftonbladet lady. ‘After his death, Nobel’s relatives burned every copy of that play they could find. Since it was a horror story, they felt that it was not worthy of a legendary prize-giver. I believe only three copies survived.’

Craig nodded his thanks for the information, and then acknowledged the Expressen representative.

‘Mr. Craig, I understand you have visited Sweden before?’

‘Yes, after the war.’

‘We always welcome opinions on our country, good or bad. Do you have any?’

‘Well, I don’t think I’m qualified-’

‘What have you liked about Sweden?’

Craig was amused by the journalist’s persistence. ‘All right. I’ve liked-let me see-most of all I’ve liked the island of the Old Town, Carl Milles’s fountain in Haymarket Square, your lobster in cream sauce, the store called Svenskt Team, your actresses Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Märta Norberg-especially Miss Norberg-why won’t she do more plays?-and what else, do I like? Yes, the trip to Uppsala by boat, Orrefors glass, your cooperative movement, your abolition of poverty, and, yes, Ivar Kreuger-I don’t want to outrage you, but the grandeur of the man fascinates me. That’s a partial list.’

‘And the other side, Mr. Craig-what have you not liked about Sweden?’

‘That’s not quite fair.’

‘You are not the type to like everything.’

‘Of course, no one does. All right. I’ll be brief, and not elaborate. I think you put too much store in conformity, you make too great a virtue of politeness and manners, you have sex but too little romance, you reap the benefits but suffer the consequences of the middle way-no highs and lows, over blandness, over neutrality. I love Sweden, but these are the things I love least of all. I would not speak of these things, but we are here to question and answer, and that is my answer.’

Craig had half a minute’s respite, as the reporters wrote. He made a gesture towards taking up his glass, but saw that it was empty. He filled his brier and lit it.

Across the room, a young woman in a Robin Hood hat was standing. Even at the distance, Craig could see that she was blinking nervously.

‘I am Sue Wiley of Consolidated Newspapers, New York,’ she said loudly. ‘Do you have any objections to personal questions, Mr. Craig?’

‘Many objections, I assure you-’

Several reporters tittered.

‘-but I acknowledge your right to ask them,’ Craig continued. ‘By being here, I’m fair game, I suppose. And I do confess, I’m more interested in Charles Dickens’s relationship with Ellen Ternan than in his paper heroines. I must assume your readers are, too. So, though I’m a reticent person, Miss Wiley, do go ahead.’

Sue Wiley remained standing. ‘Speaking of relationships, who is the lady you have travelled to Sweden with?’

He did not like her tone, or its edge, and he sat up. ‘She’s my sister-in-law, Miss Decker, and she’s quite inoffensive and having a marvellous time, thank you.’

‘Your wife was killed in a car accident three years ago.’

Since it was an announcement and not a question, Craig did not reply to it. But he did not like Miss Wiley’s prosecutor mannerism, either.

‘Do you have any immediate plans to marry again?’ she demanded.

This was impertinent, and Craig tried to contain himself. ‘I have none. If I had, it would remain my own business.’

Sue Wiley stood unabashed and blinking. ‘I want to ask you about your work habits.’

That was better, and Craig’s arm muscles eased slightly. ‘Okay,’ he said.

‘Do you find that drinking hard liquor stimulates the imagination?’

Craig tightened, and he pulled himself completely upright on the couch. The clever, insensitive bitch, he thought. He was in for a dogfight, and smelt it at once. ‘You were inquiring about my work habits,’ he countered coldly.

‘Yes, Mr. Craig, that’s what I’m talking about. I have my research. It’s no secret, is it? I’ve met and heard of writers who use dope because it helps their work. Look at De Quincey. I have it that you drink when you work.’

He would not concede a public display of bad temper. All eyes were upon him, and he forced a smile to his lips. ‘Miss Wiley, if I drank when I worked, I wouldn’t write at all.’

‘But that’s the point, you haven’t written at all, not for three or four years,’ Sue Wiley shot back triumphantly.

This brazen public exposure, by a sensation-mongering bitch, brought the heat of colour to Craig’s face. He found it hard to contain his fury. ‘Now, wait a minute, young lady-’ he began.

Before he could go on, to what regrettable end he knew not, he was interrupted.

‘Mr. Craig, may I have the floor for a moment?’ The request, clear and confident, had come from Count Bertil Jacobsson, who had raised himself to his feet and now stood beside Sue Wiley.

Craig bit his lower lip, and held his tongue.

Jacobsson had moved apart from Sue Wiley, so that he could address not only her but the rest of the press.

‘When unfounded accusations, such as those just made by the lady press member, are directed against an honoured guest from abroad, I feel that it is my duty-and not his-my duty as a host of the Nobel Foundation and a representative of His Majesty, to intervene and make the reply.’ Jacobsson studied the hushed audience with awesome patriarchal gravity. ‘Let me make clear our position. We of the Nobel Foundation do not judge our nominees and laureates by their personalities or characters or eccentricities. We are not interested in whether our winners are drunkards, heroin addicts, or polygamists. Our judgment is not based upon human behaviour. That is a task for Sunday schools. Our decision, in literature, is based solely on whether or not we think we are satisfying Mr. Nobel’s desire to reward “the most oustanding work of an idealistic tendency”.’

‘What about freedom of the press and what readers want to know?’ demanded Sue Wiley. ‘We’re servants of the public. Why did you invite us to this press conference anyway?’

‘We invited you, and everyone,’ said Jacobsson calmly, ‘to meet a laureate but not so that you could malign him with inference, gossip, and unseemly questions. I do not know Mr. Craig’s personal habits, and what is more, I am not interested in them. I am interested in his genius, and I want you to be, also, and that is why I invited you here this afternoon.’ He studied the members of the Swedish press corps, and suddenly a smile broke across his wrinkled features. ‘And suppose Miss Wiley could prove that Mr. Craig, is indeed, a most obnoxious drunkard-which you can see he is not-but suppose she could prove it? What would be proved, after all? The majority of us in this room are Swedes. I should wager there is not a teetotaler in the group. What true Swede would claim that he does not, on occasion, have his love affair with schnapps or beer? Are we children? Or do we possess the mature tolerance of an Abraham Lincoln? Do you recollect the well-known Lincoln anecdote? Gossips had warned him that his most successful general, Ulysses S. Grant, was a poor drunken imbecile. “If I knew what brand of whisky he drinks,” said Lincoln, “I would send a barrel or so to some other generals”.’

Laughter rattled through the room, and Sue Wiley blinked furiously.

With aristocratic ease, Jacobsson went on. ‘I can speak to you with some authority of previous Nobel laureates in literature, whom I have met and known personally and respected highly. Needless to say, I would not wager that all of them were abstainers and prohibitionists. I remember when we notified one Scandinavian author that he had won the Nobel Prize, he went on a two-week drunk. It is a fact. It is also a fact that when Knut Hamsun came from Norway to get his literary award in 1920, he was thoroughly inebriated the night of the dignified Ceremony. He pulled the whiskers of an elderly male member of the Swedish Academy, and he snapped old Selma Lagerlöf’s girdle!’

There was laughter once more, and much note taking, and before Sue Wiley could speak again, Jacobsson hastily added, ‘We have taken enough of Mr. Craig’s time, and surely, we have made him thirsty. While I join him in toasting Mr. Hamsun, I suggest you write your stories. Det är allt. The press conference stands adjourned!’

Afterwards, after the Press Club had been cleared of reporters, and the Marceaus, Stratman, Farelli, and Garrett had gone off with Krantz and the attachés, Andrew Craig lingered behind. The drinks had disappeared, so he leaned against a wall of the cloakroom and smoked, watching Mrs. Steen and Count Jacobsson gather up their papers.

When Mrs. Steen said her goodbye, Craig joined the old Count.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘For what? Everything I told them, I will tell you. It is true.’

‘You may have put yourself out on a limb. What if I am a drunkard? It would make a fool of you.’

‘I am sure you are not. And if you are, I could not care less. Every few years, we have a witch like Miss Wiley, and she must be put down. It is dangerous, that sensationalism. It obscures all that is important here.’

‘Well, at any rate, you were right about one thing-you did make me thirsty. Do you know where I can buy some liquor to take to the hotel?’

‘I will direct you. We will walk together.’

They went down the stairs and into the street. It was late afternoon, and already the darkness of winter had fallen on the city. A chill wind whipped up from the canal, and both men buttoned their overcoats. They walked across the square, Craig chewing his empty pipe, Jacobsson swinging his cane in a wide arc and thumping it on the brick pavement, and then they entered Fredsgatan, passing Fritze’s, who advertised themselves booksellers to the court, and turned the corner into Malmskillnadsgatan, where they found the shop.

Craig fell in line, behind several Swedes, at the long counter of the shop, and waited patiently, studying the half-filled shelves behind. When it was his turn, he requested three bottles of Ballantine’s.

Later, returning to the Grand Hotel along the canal, Craig wondered if the anecdote about Knut Hamsun were true, and Jacobsson said that he had witnessed it. For a moment, Jacobsson considered revealing to Craig a more recent incident: that of the elderly literary laureate who had arrived in Stockholm with two bountiful young ladies who, while introduced as his secretary and his interpreter, were rumoured to be his two current mistresses. It had been a situation fraught with the possibilities of scandal, but Jacobsson had artfully managed to hide it from the press.

Now, Jacobsson decided against alluding to the lechery. Instead, he said that the details of the Hamsun anecdote were carefully recorded in his Notes, and then he told Craig of his Notes, and did not conceal his envy for writers who actually wrote books. He spoke fondly of his quarters, above the Nobel Foundation, and of his private museum, which was really his study, filled with autographed photographs and memorabilia of previous Nobel laureates. He hoped that Craig would find time to pay a visit to his museum, and Craig, with growing affection for the old gentleman, said that he would.

‘Do you think your press conferences were successful today?’ Craig asked.

‘Among the best in a decade,’ said Jacobsson. ‘I looked in on each one, you know. I believe you met Dr. Farelli?’

‘The medicine man?’

‘Yes. He made an interesting remark in his interview. Someone asked him what he thought was the most serious omission in the history of the medical awards. He said Sigmund Freud. Of course, he could not know the truth. I think it might amuse you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Sigmund Freud was never formally nominated for the medical award, true-but once, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. Did you know that?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Absolutely. It is a fact. And, for that matter, why not? I should guess he was as qualified for that award as Winston Churchill. In our literary awards, we respect gifted amateurs.’

‘When was Freud nominated for the literary prize?’

‘In 1936, in his eightieth year. It had been predicted, you know, but rather as a sarcastic joke. In 1927, the psychiatrist and physician, Julius Wagner von Jauregg, won our medical award for malaria inoculation used in paralysis. Well, the Freudians, of whom he disapproved, crowded about to congratulate him, and von Jauregg told them, “Gentlemen, someday you will all get the Nobel Prize-for literature.” And it almost came to pass. In 1936, Romain Rolland and Thomas Mann nominated Freud for the Nobel literary award. Freud was a serious candidate that year, but in the end, the Swedish Academy voted him down. Sigmund Freud lost out to Eugene O’Neill. There is hidden history for you.’

They had arrived at the entrance to the Grand Hotel, and Jacobsson took his leave. He indicated the bulging package of three bottles nested in the crook of Craig’s arm.

‘Do not let Sue Wiley see you,’ he said with a smile. And then he added, almost too gently, ‘And do not forget tonight you are a guest of the King.’

Watching Jacobsson depart, Craig wondered about the old gentleman’s last remark. Did he suspect what that bitch, Sue Wiley, already knew? Had he, in his indirect and courtly way, tried to put Craig on his guard and warn him of the consequences of a scandal?

Hell, Craig thought, nothing happened to Knut Hamsun, did it? He hugged the package more tightly in his arm. Momentarily, he felt secure, three bottles secure. But he would go easy right now. He regretted that he had not reassured Jacobsson. He could have told him that tonight he would be fit for a King.