I wonder if the small town isn't, with some
lovely exceptions, a social appendix? Some day these dull market-towns
may be as obsolete as monasteries. I can imagine the farmer and his
local store-manager going by monorail, at the end of the day, into a
city more charming than any William Morris Utopia--music, a university,
clubs for loafers like me. (Lord, how I'd like to have a real club!)"
She asked impulsively, "You, why do you stay here?"
"I have the Village Virus."
"It sounds dangerous."
"It is. More dangerous than the cancer that will certainly get me
at fifty unless I stop this smoking. The Village Virus is the germ
which--it's extraordinarily like the hook-worm--it infects ambitious
people who stay too long in the provinces. You'll find it epidemic among
lawyers and doctors and ministers and college-bred merchants--all these
people who have had a glimpse of the world that thinks and laughs,
but have returned to their swamp. I'm a perfect example. But I sha'n't
pester you with my dolors."
"You won't. And do sit down, so I can see you.
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