It made him feel futile. So he picked a pleasanter role
than realist."
Cochrane nodded.
"But his unrealism of last night put him into a very realistic mess that
he couldn't dodge! Will it change him?"
"Probably," said Holden without any expression at all in his voice.
"They used to put lunatics in snake-pits. When they were people who'd
taken to lunacy for escape from reality, it made them go back to reality
to escape from the snakes. Shock-treatments used to be used, later, for
the same effect. We're too soft to use either treatment now. But Johnny
gave himself the works. The odds are that from now on he will never want
to be alone even for an instant, and he will never again quite dare to
be angry with anybody or make anybody angry. You choked him and he ran
away, and it was bad! So from now on I'd guess that Johnny will be a
very well-behaved little boy in a grown man's body." He said very wryly
indeed, "Alicia will be very happy, taking care of him."
A moment later he added:
"I look at that set-up the way I look at the landscape yonder."
Cochrane said nothing. Holden liked Alicia. Too much. It would not make
any difference at all.
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