I remembered my own lonely childhood—the long evenings spent in my parents' hive apartment, the endless dissension between my mother and my father, my father's relegation to the parlorette couch and my mother's key in the bedroomette door, their suicidal leap twenty stories to the street when I was nineteen years old.
I thought of how crowded the hive school had been when I attended it and I wondered suddenly if it was crowded now. I thought of the increasing number of empty apartments in the hive sector, and the cold breath of a long dormant suspicion blew icily through my mind. The world quivered, began to fall apart—
And then Julia said: "I was very rude to you. I didn't mean to be. I'm sorry, Mr. Bartlett."
The world steadied, came back into proper focus. "My name is Roger," I said.
"I'm sorry, Roger."
The marriage chimes began to sound, appending a tinkling ellipsis to her words. I opened the door with trembling fingers and we stepped into the chapel together. The door closed silently behind us.
Before us stood a life-size TV screen. At our elbows, electric candles combined their radiance with the feeble sunlight eking through the narrow stained glass window above the screen and made a half-hearted attempt to chase away the gloom. A basket of synthetic flowers bloomed tiredly at our feet.
Julia's face was pale, but no paler, probably, than mine was. Suddenly sonorous music throbbed out from a concealed speaker and the TV screen came to life. The Marriage Administrator materialized before us, tall, black-garbed, austere of countenance.
He did not speak till the marriage music ended. Then he said: "When I raise my left hand the first time, you will pronounce your own names clearly and distinctly so that they can be recorded in the tape-contract. When I raise my left hand the second time, you will pronounce, with equal clarity and distinctness, the words 'I do.'
"Do you—" He paused and raised his left hand.