even volunteering information.
At length Dr. Trustark stopped making notes. He nodded, smiled with a trace of weariness. "There seems to be nothing in the outward, obvious, events of your life. It has been full and happy. Now we must search further. Follow me, please."
Closing the door behind him in an adjoining room, the psychiatrist motioned his patient to a small cot.
"In this room we have absolute privacy," Dr. Trustark assured him. "The walls are completely sound-proof. Nobody can hear you even if you are overcome with emotion. You may tell me anything. Whatever it is will never be repeated beyond these four walls."
Very shortly Dr. Trustark had him in a state resembling hypnosis. The room's soft lifting and the Doctor's soothing voice relaxed him completely. He soon found himself talking about his boyhood, about his early childhood. He recalled many things which he had forgotten. Strangely, perhaps, they were all pleasant. He rambled on and on, absorbed in idyllic memories.
Abruptly Dr. Trustark aroused him from reverie. He tried to sit up and found that he was strapped to the cot. He stared at the psychiatrist in amazement and alarm.
Dr. Trustark's face was suddenly a twisted mask of fury. "Another fool! Another weakling! Another spineless parasite. You always fear because you have nothing to fear! No struggle, no sweat, no pain! You are afraid of fear Itself! You are a husk, a shadow, a nameless nothing!"
His voice became shrill. "Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at my face! You see what idiots' drivel has done to my face? Like acid marks, burned, drop by drop for thirty years! Weak, useless idiots like you!"
He began pacing the small room, like a caged animal. "You had everything. I had nothing. My childhood was a hell! And who can I tell? Who can I tell that I am nightly gnawed by fearful dreams no words can encompass? Who? No one! The great Dr. Trustark go to -- another psychiatrist? I would be laughed at. Do you hear? Laughed at! Ridiculed! And yet I go on listening to the mush of fools like you!"
Striding swiftly toward the cot, he thrust his face close to
