me
count the votes. And there is where you might say I lost my self
control.

"Damn it!" I said. Or shouted. "I won't have it! I won't put up with
it. I'll--uh--I'll get us all dead drunk. I'll take dope! I'll go out
and get a shot of penicillin and--"

I didn't do a damned thing. I couldn't.

Their control of my actions was just as complete as they wanted to make
it. While they didn't exercise it all the time, they made the rules.
According to them, they could have controlled my thoughts too if they
had wanted to. They didn't because they felt that wouldn't be
democratic. Actually, I suppose they were pretty fair and
reasonable--from their point of view. Certainly it could have been a
lot worse.

III

I wasn't as bad off as old Faust and his deal with the devil. My soul
was still my own. But my body was community property--and I couldn't,
by God, so much as bite my own tongue without feeling like a bloody
murderer--and being made to suffer for it, too.

Perhaps you don't think biting your tongue is any great privilege to
have to give up. Maybe not. But, no matter how you figure, you've got
to admit the situation was--well--confining.

And it lasted for over nine years.

Nine miserable years of semi-slavery? Well, no. I couldn't honestly say
that it was that bad. There were all the restrictions and limitations,
but also there was my perfect health; and what you might call a sort of
a sense of inner well-being. Added to that, there was my sensationally
successful career. And the money.

All at once, almost anything I undertook to do was sensationally
successful. I wrote, in several different styles and fields and under a
number of different names; I was terrific. My painting was the talk of
the art world. "Superb," said the critics. "An astonishing
other-worldly quality." How right they were--even if they didn't know
why. I patented a few little inventions, just for fun; and I invested.
The money poured in so fast I couldn't count it. I hired people to
count it, and to help guide it through the tax loopholes--although
there I was able to give them a few sneaky little ideas that even our
sharpest tax lawyers hadn't worked out.

Of course the catch in all that was that, actually, I was not so much a
rich, brilliant, successful man. I was a booming, prosperous nation.

The satisfaction I could take in all my success was limited by my
knowledge that it was a group effort. How could I help being
successful?