`But the idea of destroying the personality: is interesting,' Dr. Krum went on.
`Only if it shatters the shell which hides our love,' Dr. Rhinehart replied.
`Love?' Dr. Weinburger inquired.
`Our love.'
`Vat has love to do vith anything?' asked Dr. Krum.
`Love has something to do with everything. If I do not love I am dead.'
`How true,' the woman said.
`My whole recent life has been thrown away in a cold, mechanical dicelife. I see that now as clearly as your beautiful,
handsome faces.'
'Luke, I'd like you to come outdoors with me for a few minutes now,' Dr. Ecstein's voice said at Dr. Rhinehart's side.
`I will, Jake, but I must explain something first to' Dr. Krum.'
He turned to the little man beside him with a warm, pleading expression.
'You must stop your work with pigeons and work only with man. You can never approach what is essential to man's health and happiness through torturing chickens and pigeons. Schizophrenia is a failure to love, a failure to see loveliness. It will never be cured by a drug.'
`Oh, Dr. Rhinehart, you are being sentimental like poet,' Dr. Krum said.
`A single line of Shelley tells us more of man than all your chicken pigeon droppings ever can.'
`People haf been spouting love two thousand years. Nothing. With chemicals we change the world.'
'Thou shah not kill,' Dr. Rhinehart said.
We do not kill, only make psychotics.'
`You do not love your chickens.'
`Is impossible. No one who works with chickens can ever luf them.'
'A spiritual man loves all with a spiritual love that is never selfish, possessive or physical.'
`Oh, for Christ's sake, Luke Dr. Ecstein said.
`Precisely,' said Dr. Rhinehart. `Excuse me a moment.'
With the eminent physicians looking on, Dr. Rhinehart consulted his watch case. He groaned.
`Is late?'
Dr. Krum asked.
Dr. Rhinehart's eyes swiveled over the room like artillery radar seeking its target.
`I didn't know Dr. Rhinehart was an existentialist humanist,' the woman said.
`He's a nut,' Dr. Ecstein said, `even if he is my patient'
`Meetcha outside in five minutes, Jake. So long fellas,' Dr. Rhinehart said and strode off toward the entrance hall, but
after passing a cluster of people behind the couch he veered to his right and went down the same hallway again.
As he crunched over the broken glass he saw Miss Welish and Mrs. Ecstein emerging from the room opposite the one
he had been carried to. They stopped at the end of the hall and looked at him warily.
'Lil's been given a pill and is resting,' Mrs. Ecstein said. `I don't think you should disturb her.'
`My God, Arlene, your boobs make my mouth water. Let's go into the john.'
Mrs. Ecstein stared at him for a moment. She looked sideways at Miss Welish and then back to the doctor. Then, still
staring at her mentor, she shook her tiny purse up and down three times, opened it a crack, and peeked in. Closing the
purse, she said: `I love your big prick, Luke. Let's go: Miss Welish looked in awe from one to the other.
`You too, baby;' Dr. Rhinehart said to her.
`Come along, Joya,' Mrs. Ecstein said. `It'll be fun.'
She touched Miss Welish lightly on the breasts and went into the bathroom to her left. Miss Welish watched Mrs. Ecstein leave and then found herself face to face with Dr. Rhinehart again.
`Most beautiful body in the world, baby, except your knee. Let's go.'
She stared at him.
`But here?' she said.
`Here and now, baby, that's all there is' He moved around her to the bathroom, held the door open and waited. With a swift backward glance up the empty hallway she walked toward the bathroom.
`You people are really amazing,' she said. `Are all psychiatrists' parties like this?'
`Only Dr. Mann's,' Dr. Rhinehart said and followed her in.
Chapter Forty-three
[Being excerpts from Dr. Ecstein's case history entitled, `The Case of the Six-Sided Man'.]