"Yes," Phil said, astonished.
"Hardly a brilliant deduction," the analyst deprecated, but his eyes beamed. "In that case we must suspect another mythological ingredient. Do you know the Pandora story? There's a special point about it. She was not an ordinary girl sent by the gods to bring mankind a box containing all ills. No, she was a metal maiden, forged by Hephaestus at the command of Zeus. In other words, an automaton, a robot—bringing in this case the ills of the Second Industrial Revolution caused by the introduction of electronic calculators and sensers."
"But did Pandora have hoofs?" Phil said doubtfully.
Dr. Romadka waved away the objection. "Your unconscious probably fused in the Arabian legend of the clockwork horse. The unconscious is very artistic about these things, Phil. If you realized just how artistic, how fertilely creative, you wouldn't be worried."
"But how does all this tie in with sex?" Phil asked.
The analyst shrugged. "Must it? A visual projection, like a dream, can mean a thousand things. I warned you this was just impromptu analysis. We've carried it about as far as we can."
"Look," Phil said hesitantly after a pause. "There's a lot to the things you said, and some of them really pushed buttons in my mind. But—I hope you won't object—there's one thing that's still bothering me."
"Go right ahead."
Phil became even more diffident. Finally he said with difficulty, "Look, doctor, is there any chance that what I saw could be real in any way? Any chance at all?"
The analyst chuckled mellowly. "Not one in the world," he said with complete conviction. "What's been bothering you, Phil? Did you believe that the Greek gods and their creatures might have been materialized in some way?"