"Whatever you wish is accessible," he explained with a smile. He rose and went to the draped wall. Drawing back the folds of the curtains in several places, he showed the metal wall covered with dials and apparatus. I noted especially a small screen, like a motion picture screen. Later I was to find that it served not only for amusement, showing sound-pictures projected automatically from a central office, but also for news and for communication, like a telephone.
"Would you care for breakfast?" Edvar asked me. I accepted eagerly, and he manipulated some dials on the wall. A moment or two later a small section of the wall opened, and a tray appeared. Edvar placed it on the table by my chair.
"We have had our breakfast," he explained, and I began to eat with a keener appetite than I thought I had. It was a simple meal with a slightly exotic flavor, but without any strange dishes. During the course of it, I asked Edvar questions.
"Your life is amazingly centralized," I said. "Apparently all the things you need are supplied at your rooms on a moment's notice."
"Yes," he smiled, "it makes life simpler. We have very few needs. Many of them are satisfied while we sleep, such as cleansing and, if we like, nourishment. We can study while we sleep, acquiring facts that we may want to use later from an instrument which acts upon the subconscious mind. These dials you see are mainly to give us pleasure. If we care to have our meals served in the old-fashioned way, as you are having yours, we can do so, but we reserve those meals for the occasions when we feel the need of eating as a pure sensation. We can have music at any time--" He paused. "Would you care for some music?"
"There's nothing I'd like better," I told him. He went to the wall and turned the dials again. In a moment the room was filled with the subdued sound of a cool, melancholy music--Grieg, or some other composer, with whom I was unfamiliar, exotic and reminiscent in mood, cool, and quiet with a touch of acutely sweet pain. I listened to it in silence for a while. It was so subtle and pervasive, however, that it seemed to play directly upon the subconscious mind, so that the listener could go on thinking and talking uninterruptedly without losing any of the feeling of the melody.
