Cimabue could afford all this luxury, and more too, for, now that big business had become an art, art had become a big business. People saved the excess from their government subsidies—or, if they were lucky enough to have professional status, their salaries—to buy a painting, a holograph manuscript ... anything to distinguish their homes from the uniform grey mass of material comforts which the government bestowed on everyone alike. As a result, the partners were as wealthy as anyone outside the ruling class could hope to be. However, Mr. Replogle, at least, was not happy. He suffered from nightmares.
"But where is Orville?" demanded the man from the Times-Herald-Mirror. "We haven't come to interview you two—you always say the same thing about every new artist you discover. In fact, we already have your words set up in type."
Mr. Ditmars gave him a benign smile. "Orville's case is different. Never before in history has an absolutely unknown artist received such an immediate ovation from the public. Why, almost every picture on exhibit is already sold—the buyers have kindly allowed us to retain them on our walls for the duration of the show as a service to the public."
"Cimabue is more than a mere commercial venture," Mr. Replogle added, wishing he could slip off for a paraspirin; his head hurt most mechanically. "It is a cultural institution."
"Yeah, Orville did get pretty good write-ups," the World-Post and Journal man conceded, "though any half-way decent artist sells like hotcakes these days. People naturally go for anything that's hand-made." And he fingered his hand-painted tie self-consciously. "But it can't last."
This disturbed Mr. Replogle more than it should have. But he had been bothered for many years by his recurring dream—a dream so frightful that he did not dare to confide it to anyone because of its terrifying plausibility. And anything said or done by day that seemed to approach that midnight horror roused him to immediate defensiveness. "Oh, yes it can last!" he protested. "It will! It must! For art is the people's last bulwark against the machine—the one area which cannot be mechanized, which reassures the human race that it still is pre-eminent."
"Kindly do not touch the pictures," the roboguard droned.
"I was only feeling Orville's impasto," the lady from the Woman's Own News defended herself. "Very thick."
I couldn't have told her to stop, Mr. Replogle reflected bitterly. Coming from me it would have been rude, but from a robot it's all right. Everyone knows a robot's only aim is to serve man. Our altruism depends on our individual consciences; theirs is built-in and, hence, more reliable.
"But where is Orville?" the man from the Times-Herald-Mirror persisted. "He was supposed to be here at three-thirty, and it's almost four now."