Twenty years disappeared. ‘They wouldn’t let me have you,’ Sonny told the teddy; and it said, in a voice musical and warm:
‘It’s all right, Sonny. You can have me now, Sonny. You can have everything, Sonny.’
‘They took you away,’ he whispered, remembering. They took the teddy-bear away; he had never forgotten. They took it away, and they were wild. Mother was wild, and father was furious; they raged at the little boy and scolded him, and threatened him. Didn’t he know they were poor, and did he want to ruin them all, and what was wrong with him anyway, that he wanted his little sister’s silly stuffed robots when he was big enough to use nearly grown-up goods.
The night had been a terror with the frowning, sad robots ringed around and the little girl crying; and what had made it terror was not the scolding - he’d had scoldings - but the worry, the fear and almost the panic in his parents’ voices. For what he did, he came to understand, was no longer a childish sin; it was a big sin, a failure to consume his quota -
And it had to be punished. The first punishment was the extra birthday party; the second was - shame. Sonny Trumie, not quite twelve, was made to feel shame and humiliation. Shame is only a little thing, but it makes the one who owns it little too. Shame. The robots were reset to scorn him. He woke to mockery, and went to bed with contempt. Even his little sister lisped the catalogue of his failures. You aren’t trying, Sonny, and You don’t care, Sonny, and You’re a terrible disappointment to us, Sonny. And finally all the things were true; because Sonny at twelve was what his elders made him.
And they made him ... ‘neurotic’ is the term; a pretty-sounding word that means ugly things like fear and worry and endless self-reproach....
‘Don’t worry,’ whispered the teddy. ‘Don’t worry, Sonny. You can have me. You can have what you want. You don’t have to have anything else....’
7
Garrick raged through the halls of the Private Place like a tiger upon a kid. ‘Kathryn!’ he cried. ‘Kathryn Pender!’ Finally he had found a way in, unguarded, forgotten. But it had taken time. And he was worried. ‘Kathryn!’ The robots peeped out at him, worriedly, and sometimes they got in his way and he bowled them aside. They didn’t fight back, naturally - what robot would hurt a human? But sometimes they spoke to him, pleading, for it was not according to the wishes of Mr. Trumie that anyone but him rage destroying through North Guardian Island. He passed them by. ‘Kathryn!’ he called. ‘Kathryn!’
It wasn’t that Trumie was dangerous.
He told himself fiercely: Trumie was not dangerous. Trumie was laid bare in his folder, the one that Roosenburg had supplied. He couldn’t be blamed, and he meant no harm. He was once a bad little boy who was trying to be good by consuming, consuming; and he wore himself into neurosis doing it; and then they changed the rules on him. End of the ration; end of forced consumption, as the robots took over for mankind at the other end of the cornucopia. It wasn’t necessary to struggle to consume, so the rules were changed....
And maybe Mr. Trumie knew that the rules had been changed; but Sonny didn’t. It was Sonny, the bad little boy trying to be good, who had made North Guardian Island…
And it was Sonny who owned the Private Place, and all it held - including Kathryn Pender.
Garrick called hoarsely, ‘Kathryn! If you hear me, answer me!’
It had seemed so simple. The fulcrum on which the weight of Trumie’s neurosis might move was a teddy-bear; give him a teddy-bear - or, perhaps, a teddy-bear suit, made by night in the factories of Fisherman’s Island, with a girl named Kathryn Pender inside - and let him hear, from a source he could trust, the welcome news that it was no longer necessary to struggle, that compulsive consumption could have an end. Permissive analysis would clear it up; but only if Trumie would listen.
‘Kathryn!’ roared Roger Garrick, racing through a room of mirrors and carved statues. Because, just in case Trumie didn’t listen, just in case the folder was wrong and the teddy wasn’t the key -
Why, then, the teddy to Trumie was only a robot. And Trumie destroyed them by the score.
‘Kathryn!’ cried Roger Garrick, trotting through the silent palace; and at last he heard what might have been an answer. At least it was a voice - a girl’s voice, at that. He was before a passage that led to a room with a fountain and silent female robots, standing and watching him. The voice came from a small room. He ran to the door.
It was the right door.
There was Trumie, four hundred pounds of lard, lying on a marble bench with a foam-rubber cushion, the jowled head in the small lap of – Teddy. Or Kathryn Pender in the teddy-bear suit, the sticky like legs pointed straight out, the stick-like arms clumsily patting him. She was talking to him, gently and reassuringly. She was telling him what he needed to know - that he had eaten enough, that he had used enough, that he had consumed enough to win the respect of all, and an end to consuming.
Garrick himself could not have done better.
It was a sight from Mother Goose, the child being soothed by his toy. But it was not a sight that fit in well with its surroundings, for the seraglio was upholstered in mauve and pink, and wicked paintings hung about.
Sonny Trumie rolled the pendulous head and looked squarely at Garrick. The worry was gone from the fearful little eyes.
Garrick stepped back.
No need for him just at this moment. Let Trumie relax for a while, as he had not been able to relax for a score of years. Then the psychist could pick up where the girl had been unable to proceed; but in the meantime, Trumie was finally at rest.
The teddy looked up at Garrick, and in its bright blue eyes, the eyes that belonged to the girl named Kathryn, he saw a queer tincture of triumph and compassion.
Garrick nodded and left, and went out to the robots of North Guardian and started them clearing away.
Sonny Trumie nestled his swine’s head in the lap of the teddy-bear. It was talking to him so nicely, so nicely. It was droning away, ‘Don’t worry, Sonny. Don’t worry. Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right.’ Why, it was almost as though it were real.
It had been, he calculated with the part of his mind that was razor-sharp and never relaxed, it had been nearly two hours since he had eaten. Two hours! And he felt as though he could go another hour at least, maybe two. Maybe - maybe even not eat at all again that day. Maybe even learn to live on three meals. Perhaps two. Perhaps — He wriggled - as well as four hundred greasy pounds can wriggle - and pressed against the soft warm fur of the teddy-bear. It was so soothing! ‘You don’t have to eat so much, Sonny. You don’t have to drink so much. No one will mind. Your father won’t mind, Sonny. Your mother won’t mind ...’
It was very comfortable to hear the teddy-bear telling him those things. It made him drowsy. So deliciously drowsy! It wasn’t like going to sleep, as Sonny Trumie had known going to sleep for a dozen or more years, the bitterly fought surrender to the anesthetic weariness. It was just drowsy....
And he did want to go to sleep.
And finally he slept. All of him slept. Not just the four hundred pounds of blubber and the little pig eyes, but even the razor-sharp mind - Trumie that lived in the sad, obedient hulk; it slept; and it had never slept before.
The Seven Deadly Virtues