The way we feel about another person,or about objects, is often bound up in associations that have no directconnection with the person or object at all. Often, what we call a "changeof heart" comes about sheerly from a change in the many associations whichmake up our present viewpoint. Now, suppose that these associationscould be altered artificially, at the option of the personwho was in charge of the process....
Sentiment, Inc.
by POUL ANDERSON
SHE was twenty-two years old, fresh out of college, full of life andhope, and all set to conquer the world. Colin Fraser happened tobe on vacation on Cape Cod, where she was playing summer[6]stock, and went to more shows than he had planned. It wasn't hard toget an introduction, and before long he and Judy Sanders were seeinga lot of each other.
"Of course," she told him one afternoon on the beach, "my real nameis Harkness."
He raised his arm, letting the sand run through his fingers. The beachwas big and dazzling white around them, the sea galloped in with asteady roar, and a gull rode the breeze overhead. "What was wrongwith it?" he asked. "For a professional monicker, I mean."
She laughed and shook the long hair back over her shoulders. "Iwanted to live under the name of Sanders," she explained.
"Oh—oh, yes, of course. Winnie the Pooh." He grinned. "Soulmates,that's what we are." It was about then that he decided he'd been abachelor long enough.
In the fall she went to New York to begin the upward grind—understudy,walk-on parts, shoestring-theaters, and roles in outright turkeys.Fraser returned to Boston for awhile, but his work suffered, he had tokeep dashing off to see her.
By spring she was beginning to get places; she had talent and everybodyenjoys looking at a brown-eyed blonde. His weekly proposals werealso beginning to show some real progress, and he thought that a monthor two of steady siege might finish the campaign. So he took leave fromhis job and went down to New York himself. He'd saved up enoughmoney, and was good enough in his work, to afford it; anyway, he washis own boss—consulting engineer, specializing in mathematicalanalysis.
He got a furnished room in Brooklyn, and filled in his leisure time—ashe thought of it—with some special math courses at Columbia. Andhe had a lot of friends in town, in a curious variety of professions. Nextto Judy, he saw most of the physicist Sworsky, who was an entertainingcompanion though most of his work was too top-secret even to be mentioned.It was a happy period.
There is always a jarring note, to be sure. In this case, it was the factthat Fraser had plenty of competition. He wasn't good-looking himself—atall gaunt man of twenty-eight, with a dark hatchet face andperpetually-rumpled clothes. But still, Judy saw more of him than of anyoneelse, and admitted she was seriously considering his proposal andno other.
He called her up once for a date. "Sorry," she answered. "