“You made it?”
“Made it.”
“How?”
“By thinking of it. By wanting it. By imagining it.”
“But—out of what?”
“I don’t know and I don’t much care. Our scientists here will tell you we made it out of the ultimate constituents of matter. Matter, unformed, only exists for us in its ultimate constituents. Something like electrons of electrons of electrons. Here we are all suspended in a web, immersed, if you like, in a sea, an air of this matter. It is utterly plastic to our imagination and our will. Imperceptible in its unformed state, it becomes visible and tangible as our minds get to work on it, and we can make out of it anything we want, including our own bodies. Only, so far as our imaginations are still under the dominion of our memories, so far will the things they create resemble the things we knew on earth. Thus you will notice that while Elizabeth and I are much more beautiful than we were on earth” (he had noticed it), “because we desired to be more beautiful, we are still recognizable as Paul and Elizabeth because our imaginations are controlled by our memories. You are as you always were, only younger than when we knew you, because your imagination had nothing but memory to go on. Everything you create here will probably be a replica of something on earth you remember.”
“But if I want something new, something beautiful that I haven’t seen before, can’t I have it?”
“Of course you can have it. Only, just at first, until your own imagination develops, you’ll have to come to me or Turner or Michael Angelo to make it for you.”
“And will these things that you and Turner and Michael Angelo make for me be permanent?”
“Absolutely, unless we unmade them. And I don’t think we should do that against your will. Anyhow, though we can destroy our own works we can’t destroy each other’s, that is to say, reduce them to their ultimate constituents. What’s more, we shouldn’t dream of trying.”