Page:Fantastic v08n11 1959-11.djvu/52
—no, for several seconds—the sounds of the city became the notes of a great symphony, tragic and darkly majestic. Let us listen again. No, it is gone now. Oh, I suppose it might have been a powerful hi-fi briefly yet smoothly turned up, perhaps in the dormitory there—no, I will not believe that, I will never believe it!—it was the random sounds of the city we heard and for several seconds they became powerful, perfect music. Marihuana, I have read, produces such illusions, but I have never smoked even nicotine. Well, this is becoming a night for wonders! I shall always think you somehow responsible for them, Di.
Di, it occurs to me that what we have just shared the privilege of hearing is an excellent chance example of what I am trying to achieve under laboratory conditions in the Folly. It has been said that if you set a billion monkeys to pounding on a billion typewriters they would eventually write among other things purely by chance the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. There are several catches to that one, especially the length of time represented by the "eventually" and the question of the means of checking the monkey pages for intelligibility and of recognizing and fitting together the fragments. Still, it seems to me that we have here a valid analogy: listen to the random noises of a city long enough and you will eventually catch a section where purely by chance they counterfeit a great unknown symphony. It is another case of waiting for three weeks of thirteen-hearts-hands and—in this case—getting them!
Also it occurs to me that the roses we swore we smelled might conceivably be put in the same or a nearby category. Some physiologists believe that odor is a matter of formula and that various combinations of molecules, some common, some most rare, will produce the same scent when impinging on the receptors in the nasal membrane. Sniff the acrid atmosphere of a city long enough and you will eventually inhale a rare combination of industrial molecules that counterfeits the scent of roses. Oh, what travesties the cruder of my colleagues would make of that notion!
I suppose there must be some humdrum explanation in both cases (though I don't really believe that) but just