664
RAMON SENDER
me? Why does it protest with me in
this
way? Why with me and
not with other women?"
For a moment Arner thought that his seductive mask busi–
ness might be immoral. Worse than a perversion: an aberration.
Matilda repeated her question and Amer felt inhibited by
the need to be precise:
"Who knows, Mrs. Strolheim?
If
you had become preg–
nant maybe an extraordinary man would have been born to you.
An
exceptional being. Maybe the man humanity has needed for
years. That all humanity needs and has been expecting for
centuries."
Arner was being carried away and Matilda thought that it
was because her clinical case had made such an impresSion on
him, rather than her beauty.
"Do you believe that, doctor? No one has ever spoken to
me as you have," she said timidly and sincerely. "What can the
planet expect of me? Are you telling me that it does expect
something?"
"A son. A new man. Your child could be the solution."
"What solution?"
"Humanity always needs a solution."
"But what?"
Arner had never found himself in a situation like this before
either, talking as a physician to a beautiful madwoman. Her
eyes were still questioning and Arner could do no less than reply:
"The son you might have could be someone, understand?
I am an ordinary man. There are millions like me. But some men
in our time have had a great influence, like Freud, Gandhi,
Lenin, and especially Einstein. Nevertheless nature does not stop
with them. It can never stop with anybody. It goes ahead with
its desires and necessities, which we still don't understand, nor
will we probably ever succeed in understanding. Yet nature-has
its ideal. And searches for it,
in
one way or another. You beauti–
ful women are the agents of this natural miracle:"
She was looking solemn, although she had an urge to laugh.
