Progris riport 1 martch 3.

Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont no why but he says its importint so
they will see if they can use me. I hope they use me becaus Miss Kinnian says mabye they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon I werk in Dormers bakery where Mr Donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or cake if I want. I am 32 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. I tolld

dr Strauss and perfesser Nemur I cant rite good but he says it dont matter he says I shud rite just like I talk and like I rite compushishens in Miss Kinnians class at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where I go to
lern 3 times a week on my time off. Dr Strauss says to rite a lot evrything

I think and evrything that happins to me but I cant think anymor because I have nothing to rite so I will close for today... yrs truly Charlie
Gordon.

Progris riport 2 - martch 4.

I had a test today. I think I faled it and I think mabye now they wont use
me. What happind is I went to Prof Nemurs office on my lunch time like they said and his secertery took me to a place that said psych dept on the door
with a long hall and alot of littel rooms with onley a desk and chares. And
a nice man was in one of the rooms and he had some wite cards with ink spilld all over them. He sed sit down Charlie and make yourself cunfortible and
rilax. He had a wite coat like a docter but I dont think. he was no docter because he dint tell me to opin my mouth and say ah. All he had was those wite cards. His name is Burt. I fergot his last name because I dont remembir so good.

I dint know what he was gonna do and I was holding on tite to the chair like sometimes when I go to a dentist onley Burt aint no dentist neither but he kept telling me to rilax and that gets me skared because it always means its gonna hert.

So Burt sed Charlie what do you see on this card. I saw the spilld ink and
I was very skared even tho I got my rabits foot in my pockit because when I was a kid I always faled tests in school and I spilld ink to.

I tolld Burt I saw ink spilld on a wite card. Burt said yes and he smild and
that maid me feel good. He kept terning all the cards and I tolld him somebody spilld ink on all of them red and black. I thot that was a easy test but when I got up to go Burt stoppd me and said now sit down Charlie we are not thru yet. Theres more we got to do with these cards. I dint understand about it but I remembir Dr Strauss said do anything the testor telld me even

if it dont make no sense because thats testing.

I dont remembir so good what Burt said but I remembir he wantid me to say what was in the ink. I dint see nothing in the ink but Burt sed there was picturs there. I coudnt see no picturs. I reely tryed to see. I holded the
card up close and then far away. Then I said if I had my eye glassis I coud probaly see better I usully only ware my eyeglassis in the movies or to watch TV but I sed maybe they will help me see the picturs in the ink. I put them

on and I said now let me see the card agars I bet I find it now.

I tryed hard but I still coudnt find the picturs I only saw the ink. I tolld
Burt mabey I need new glassis. He rote somthing down on a paper and I got skared of faling the test. So I tolld him it was a very nice pictur of ink
with pritty points all around the eges but he shaked his head so that wasnt
it neither. I asked him if other pepul saw things in the ink and he sed yes they imagen picturs in the inkblot. He tolld me the ink on the card was calld inkblot.

Burt is very nice and he tasks slow like Miss Kinman dose in her class where
I go to lern reeding for slow adults. He explaned me it was a raw shok test. He sed pepul see things in the ink. I said show me where. He dint show me he
just kept saying think imagen theres something on the card. I tolld him I imaggen a inkblot.

He shaked his head so that wasnt rite eather. He said what does it remind you of pretend its something. I closd my eyes for a long time to pretend and then I said I pretend a bottel of ink spilld all over a wite card. And thats when
the point on his pencel broke and then we got up and went out.

I dont think I passd the raw shok test.

3d progris riport.

Martch 5 - Dr Strauss and prof Nemur say it dont matter about the ink on the cards. I tolld them I dint spill the ink on them and I coudnt see anything in the ink. They said maybe they will still use me. I tolld Dr Strauss that Miss Kinnian never gave me tests like that only riting and reeding. He said Miss Kinnian tolld him I was her bestist pupil in the Beekman School for retarted adults and I tryed the hardist becaus I reely wantd to lern I wantid it more even then pepul who are smarter even then me.

Dr Strauss askd me how come you went to the Beekman School all by yourself Charlie. How did you find out about it. I said I dont remembir.

Prof Nemur said but why did you want to lern to reed and spell in the frist place. I tolld him because all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb and my mom always tolld me to try and lern just like Miss Kinnian tells me but its very hard to be smart and even when I lern something in Miss Kinnians class at the school I ferget alot.

Dr Strauss rote some things on a peice of paper and prof Nemur talkd to me very sereus. He said you know Charlie we are not shure how this experamint will werk on pepul because we onley tried it up to now on animils. I said
thats what Miss Kinnian tolld me but I dont even care if it herts or anything because Im strong and I will werk hard.

I want to get smart if they will let me. They said they got to get permissen
from my familie but my uncle Herman who use to take care of me is ded and I dont remember about my familie. I dint see my mother or father or my littel sister Norma for a long long long time. Mabye their ded to. Dr Strauss askd me where they use to live. I think in brooklin. He sed they will see if mabye they can find them.

I hope I dont have to rite to much of these progris ri-ports because it takes

along time and I get to sleep very late and Im tired at werk in the morning. Gimpy hollered at me because I droppd a tray full of rolles I was carrying
over to the oven. They got derty and he had to wipe them off before he put
them in to bake. Gimpy hollers at me all the time when I do something rong,

but he reely likes me because hes my frend. Boy if I get smart wont he be serprised.

Progris riport 4.

Mar 6 - I had more crazy tests today in case they use me. That same place but
a differnt littel testing room. The nice lady who give it to me tolld me the
name and I askd her how do you spell it so I can put it down rite in my
progis riport. THEMATIC APPERCEPTON TEST. I dont know the frist 2 werds but I know what test means. You got to pass it or you get bad marks.

This test lookd easy because I coud see the picturs. Only this time she dint want me to tell what I saw in the picturs. That mixd me up. I tolld her yesterday Burt said I shoud tell what I saw in the ink. She said that dont
make a difrence because this test is something else. Now you got to make up storys about the pepul in the picturs.

I said how can I tell storys about pepul I dont know. She said make beleeve but I tolld her thats lies. I never tell lies any more because when I was a
kid I made lies and I always got hit. I got a pictur in my walet of me and Norma with Uncle Herman who got me the job to be janiter at Dormers bakery before he dyed.

I said I coud make storys about them because I livd with Uncle Herman along time but the lady dint want to hear about them. She said this test and the other one the raw shok was for getting persinality. I laffd. I tolld her how
can you get that thing from cards that sombody spilld ink on and fotos of pepul you dont even no. She lookd angrey and took the picturs away. I dont care.

I gess I faled that test too.

Then I drawed some picturs for her but I dont drawer so good. Later the
other testor Burt in the wite coat came back his name is Burt Selden and he
took me to a diferent place on the same 4th floor in the Beekman University
that said PSYCHOLOGY LABORATORY on the door. Burt said PSYCHOLOGY means minds and LABORATORY meens a place where they make spearamints. I thot he ment like
where they made the chooing gum but now I think its puzzels and games because
thats what we did.

I coudnt werk the puzzels so good because it was all broke and the peices

coudnt fit in the holes. One game was a paper with lines in all derections
and lots of boxs. On one side it said START and on the other end it said FINISH. He tolld me that game was amazed and I shoud take the pencil and go from where it said START to where it said FINISH withowt crossing over any of the lines.

I dint understand the amazed and we used up a lot of papers. Then Burt said look I'll show you something lets go to the sperimental lab mabye youll get the idea. We went up to the 5th floor to another room with lots of cages and animils they had monkys and some mouses. It had a funny smel like old garbidge. And there was other pepul in wite coats playing with the animils so I thot it was like a pet store but their wasnt no customers. Burt took a wite mouse out of the cage and showd him to me. Burt said thats Algernon and he can do this amazed very good. I tolld him you show me how he does that.

Well do you know he put Algernon in a box like a big tabel with alot of
twists and terns like all kinds of walls and a START and a FINISH like the
paper had. Only their was a skreen over the big tabel. And Burt took out his
clock and lifted up a slidding door and said lets go Algernon and the mouse
sniffd 2 or 3 times and startid to run. First he ran down one long row and
then when he saw he coudnt go no more he came back where he startid from and he just stood there a minit wiggeling his wiskers. Then he went off in the
other derection and startid to run again.

It was just like he was doing the same thing Burt
wanted me to do with the lines on the paper. I was laffing because I thot it
was going to be a hard thing for a mouse to do. But then Algernon kept going
all the way threw that thing all the rite ways till he came out where it said
FINISH and he made a squeek. Burt says that means he was happy because he did the thing rite.

Boy I said thats a smart mouse. Burt said woud you like to race against Algernon. I said sure and he said he had a differnt kind of amaze made of wood with rows skratched in it and an electrik stick like a pencil. And he
coud fix up Algernons amaze to be the same like that one so we could both be doing the same kind.

He moved all the bords around on Algemons tabel because they come apart and he could put them together in differnt ways. And then he put the skreen back
on top so Algernon woudnt jump over any rows to get to the FINISH. Then he gave me the electrik stick and showd me how to put it in between the rows and Im not suppose to lift it off the bord just follow the little skratches until

the pencil cant move any more or I get a little shock.

He took out his clock and he was trying to hide it. So I tryed not to look at him and that made me very nervus.

When he said go I tryed to go but I dint know where to go. I didnt know the way to take. Then I herd Algernon squeeking from the box on the tabel and his feet skratching like he was runing alredy. I startid to go but I went in the
rong way and got stuck and a littel shock in my fingers so I went back to the START but evertime I went a differnt way I got stuck and a shock. It didnt
hert or anything just made me jump a littel and Burt said it was to show me
I did the wrong thing. I was haffway on the bord when I herd Algernon squeek like he was happy again and that means he won the race.

And the other ten times we did it over Algernon won evry time because I coudnt find the right rows to get to where it says FINISH. I dint feel bad because I watched Algernon and I lernd how to finish the amaze even if it takes me along time.

I dint know mice were so smart.

Progris riport 5 mar 6.

So their going to use me. Im so exited I can hardley rite it down. But then Prof Nemur and Dr Strauss had a argament about it frist. I was sitting in Prof Nemurs office when Dr Strauss and Burt Selden came in. Prof Nemur was worryed about using me but Dr Strauss tolld him I looked like the best one they testid so far. Burt tolld him Miss Kinnian rekemmended me the best from all the people who she was teaching at the center for retarted adults. Where I go.

Dr Strauss said I had something that was very good. He said I had a good motor-vation. I never even knowed I had that. I felt good when he said not everbody with an eye-Q of 68 had that thing like I had it. I dont know what it is or where I got it but he said Algernon had it too. Algernons motor-vation is the chees they put in his box. But it cant be only that because I dint have no chees this week.

Prof Nemur was worryd about my eye-Q getting too high from mine that was too low and I woud get sick from it. And Dr Strauss tolld Prof Nemur somthing I
dint understand so wile they was talking I rote down some of the words in my notebook for keeping my progris riports.

He said Harold thats Prof Nemurs frist name I know Charlie is not what you had in mind as the frist of your new breed of intelek** coudnt get the word
*** superman. But most people of his low went" are host** and uncoop** they are usally dull and apathet** and hard to reach. Charlie has a good natcher and hes intristed and eegerto pleese.

Then prof Nemur said remembir he will be the first human beeing ever to have his intelijence increesd by sergery. Dr Strauss said thats exakly what I
ment. Where will we find another retarted adult with this tremendus motovation to lern. Look how well he has lerned to reed and rite for his low mentel age. A tremendous achievement.

I dint get all the werds and they were talking to fast but it sounded like Dr Strauss and Burt was on my side and Prof Nemur wasnt.

Burt kept saying Alice Kinnian feels he has an overwhelm" desir to lern. He aktually beggd to be used. And thats true because I wantid to be smart. Dr Strauss got up and walkd around and said I say we use Charlie. And Burt noded. Prof Nemur skratchd his head and rubbd his nose with his thum and said mabye your rite. We will use Charlie. But weve got to make him understand

that a lot of things can go wrong with the experamint.

When he said that I got so happy and exited I jumpd up and shaked his hand for being so good to me. I think he got skared when I did that.

He said Charlie we werked on this for a long time but only on animils like Algernon. We are sure thers no fisical danger for you but there are other things we cant tell untill we try it. I want you to understand this mite fale
and then nothing woud happen at all. Or it mite even succeed temperary and leeve you werse off then you are now. Do you understand what that meens. If that happins we will have to send you bak to the Warren state home to live.

I said I dint care because I aint afraid of nothing. Im very strong and I always do good and beside I got my luky rabits foot and I never breakd a mhrir in my life. I droppd some dishis once but that dont count for bad luk.

Then Dr Strauss said Charlie even if this fales your making a grate contribyushun to sience. This experimint has been successful on lots of animils but its never bin tride on a humen beeing. You will be the first.

I told him thanks doc you wont be sorry for giving me my 2nd chance like Miss Kinnian says. And I 'meen it like I tolld them. After the operashun Im gonna try to be smart. Im gonna try awful hard.

Progris riport 6th Mar 8.

Im skared. Lots of pepul who werk at the collidge and the pepul at the medicil school came to wish me luk. Burt the tester brot me some flowers he said they were from the pepul at the psych departmint. He wished me luk.

I hope I have luk. I got my rabits foot and my
luky penny and my horshoe. Dr Strauss said dont be so superstishus Charlie. This

is sience. I dont no what sience is but they all keep saying it so mabye
its something that helps you have good luk. Anyway Im keeping my rabits foot in one hand and my luky penny in the other hand with the hole in it. The penny I meen. I wish I coud take the horshoe with me to but its hevy so I'll just leeve it in my jaket.

Joe Carp from the bakery brot me a chokilat cake from Mr Donner and the folks at the bakery and they hope I get better soon. At the bakery they .think Im sick becaus thats what Prof Nemur said I shoud tell them and nothing about an operashun for getting smart. Thats a secrit until after in case it dont werk or something goes wrong.

Then Miss Kinnian came to see me and she brout me some magizenes to reed, and she lookd kind of nervus and skared. She fixd up the flowres on my tabel and put evrything nice and neet not messd up like I made it. And she fixd the pilow under my hed. She likes me alot becaus I try very hard to Tern

evrything not like some of the pepul at the adult center who dont reely care. She wants me to get smart. I know.

Then Prof Nemur said I cant have any more visiters becaus I got to rest. I
askd Prof Nemur if I coud beet Algernon in the race after the operashun and
be sayd mabye. If the operashun werks good I'll show that mouse I can be as smart as he is even smarter. Then I'll be abel to reed better and spell the
werds good and know lots of things and be like other pepul. Boy that woud serprise everyone. If the operashun werks and I get smart mabye I'll be abel
to find my mom and dad and sister and show them. Boy woud they 'be serprised to see me smart just like them and my sister.

Prof Nemur says if it werks good and its perminent they will make other
pepul like me smart also. Mabye pepul all over the werid. And he said that meens Im doing somthing grate for sience and I'll be famus and my name will go down in the books. I dont care so much about beeing famus. I just want to be smart like other pepul so I can have lots of frends who like me.

They dint give me anything to eat today. I dont know what eating got to do
with geting smart and Im. hungry. Prof Nemur took away my choklate cake. That Prof Nemur is a growch. Dr Strauss says I can have it back after the
operashun. You cant eat before a operashun. Not even cheese.

PROGRESS REPORT 7 MARCH 11

The operashun dint hert. Dr Strauss did it while I was sleeping. I dont know
how because I dint see but there was bandiges on my eyes and my head for 3 days so - I couldnt make no PROGRESS REPORT till today. The skinny nerse who wached me riting says I spelld PROGRESS rong and she tolld me how to spell it

and REPORT to and MARCH. I got to remembir that. I have a very bad memary for speling. Anyway they took off the bandiges from my eyes today so I can make
a PROGRESS REPORT now. But there is still some bandigis on my head.

I was skared when they came in and tolld me it was time to go for the operashun. They maid me get out of the bed and on another bed that has weels on it and they rolld me out of the room and down the hall to the door that
says sergery. Boy was I serprised that it was a big room with green walls and lots of docters sitting around up high all around the room waching the operashun. I dint no it was going to be like a show.

A man came up to the tabel all in wite and with a wite cloth on his face
like in TV shows and rubber glovs and he said rilax Charlie its me Dr
Strauss. I said hi doc Im skared. He said theres nothing to be skared about
Charlie he said youll just go to sleep. I said thats what Im skared about. He
patted my head and then 2 other men waring wite masks too came and straped my arms and legs down so I coudnt move them and that maid me very skared and my stomack feeled tite like I was gone to make all over but I dint only wet a

littel and I was gone to cry but they put a rubber thing on my face for me to breeth in and it smelld funny. All the time I herd Dr Strauss talking out
loud about the operashun telling evrybody what he was gonna do. But I dint understand anything about it and I was thinking mabye

after the operashun I'll be smart and I'll understand all the things hes talking about. So I breethed deep and then I gess I was very tired becase I went to sleep.

When I waked up I was back in my bed and it was very dark. I coudnt see nothing but I herd some talking. It was the nerse and Burt and I said whats
the matter why dont you put on the lites and when are they gonna operate. And they laffed and Burt said Charlie its all over. And its dark because you got bandijis over your eyes.

Its a funny thing. They did it while I was sleeping.

Burt comes in to see me evry day to rite down all the things like my tempertur and my blud preshur and the other things about me. He says its on acount of the sientific methid. They got to keep reckerds about what happins so they can do it agen when they want to. Not to me but to the other pepul like me who aint smart.

Thais why I got to do these pr-egie- progress reports. Burt says its part of
the esperimint and they will make fotastats of the reports to study them
so they will know what is going on in my mind. I dont see how they will know what is going on in my mind by looking at these reports. I read them over and over a lot of times to see what I rote and I dont no whats going on in my

mind so how are they going to.

But anyway thats sience and I got to try to be smart like other pepul. Then when I am smart they will talk to me and I can sit with them and listen like
Joe Carp and Frank and Gimpy do when they talk and have a discushen about importent things. While their werking they start talking about things like
about god or about the truble with all the mony the presedint is spending or about the ripublicans and demicrats. And they get all excited like their
gonna have a fite so Mr Donner got to come in and tell them to get back to baking or theyll all get canned union or no union. I want to talk about
things like that.

If your smart you can have lots of fiends to talk to and you never get lonley by yourself all the time.

Prof Nemur says its ok to tell about all the things that happin to me in the progress reports but he says I shoud rite more about what I feel and what I think and remember about the past. I tolld him I dont know how to think or remembir and he said just try.

All the time the bandiges were on my eyes I tryed to think and remembir but nothing happined. I dont know what to think or remembir about. Maybe if I ask him he will tell me how I can think now that Im suppose to get smart. What do smart pepul think about or remembir. Fancy things I bet. I wish I new some fancy things alredy.

March 12 - I dont have to rite PROGRESS REPORT on top evry day just when I start a new batch after Prof Nemur
takes the old ones away. I just have to put the date on top. That saves time. Its a good idea. I can sit up in bed and

look out the window at the gras and trees outside. The skinney nerses name is Hilda and she is very good to me. She brings me things to eat and she fixes my bed and she
says I was a very brave man to let them do things to my
hed. She says she woud never let them do things to her branes for all the tea in china. I tolld her it wasnt for tea in china. It was to make me smart. And she said mabey they
got no rite to make me smart because if god wantid me to
be smart he would have made me born that way. And
what about Adem and Eev and the sin with the tree of nowlege and eating the appel and the fall. And mabey
Prof Nemur and Dr Strauss was tampiring with things they
got no rite to tampir with.

She's very skinney and when she talks her face gets all red. She says mabey I better prey to god to ask him to forgiv what they done to me. I dint eat no appels or do nothing sinful. And now Im skared. Mabey I shoudnt of let them

oparate on my branes like she said if its agenst god. I dont want to make god angrey.

March 13 - 

Miss Kinnian came to see me today and she said Charlie you look wonderful. I tolld her I feel fine but I dont feel smart yet. I thot that when the
operashun was over and they took the bandijis off my eyes Id be smart and no a lot of things so I coud read and talk about importent things like evryebody else.

She said thats not the way it werks Charlie. It comes slowley and you have to werk very hard to get smart.

I dint no that. If I got to werk hard anyway what did I have to have the operashun for. She said she wasnt sure but the operashun was to make it so that when I did werk hard to get smart it woud stick with me and not be like
it was before when it dint stick so good.

Well I tolld her that made me kind of feel bad because I thot I was going to
be smart rite away and I coud go back to show the guys at the bakery how
smart I am and talk with them about things and mabye even get to be an
assistint baker. Then I was gone to try and find my mom and dad. They woud be serprised to see how smart I got because my mom always wanted me too be smart to. Mabey they woudnt send me away no more if they see how smart I am. I

tolld Miss Kinnian I would try hard to be smart as hard as I can. She pattid my hand and said I no you will. I have fayth in you Charlie.

PROGRESS REPORT 8

March 15 - Im out of the hospitil but not back at werk yet. Nothing is happining. I had lots of tests and differint kinds of races with Algernon. I hate that mouse. He always beets me. Prof Nemur says I got to play those games and I got to take those tests over and over agen.

Those amazes are stoopid. And those picturs are stoopid to. I like to drawer

the picturs of a man and woman but I wont make up lies about pepul. And I cant do the puzzels good.

I get headakes from trying to think and remembir so much. Dr Strauss promised he was going to help me but he dont. He dont tell me what to think or when I'll get smart. He just makes me lay down on a couch and talk.

Miss Kinnian comes to see me at the collidge too. I tolld her nothing was happining. When am I going to get smart. She said you got to be pashent Charlie these things take time. It will happin so slowley you wont know its happening. She said Burt tolld her I was comming along fine.

I still think those races and those tests are stoopid and I think riting these progress reports are stoopid to.

March 17 -

When I waked up this morning rite away I thot I was gone to be smart but Im not. Evry morning I think Im gone to be smart but nothing happins. Mabye the experimint dint werk. Maby I wont get smart and I'll have to go live

at the Warren home. I hate the tests and I hate the amazeds and I hate Algernon.

I never new before that I was dumber than a mouse. I dont feel like riting any more progress reports. I forget things and even when I rite them in my notbook sometimes I cant reed my own riting and its very hard. Miss Kinnian says have pashents but I feel sick and tired. And I get headakes all the
time. I want to go back to werk in the bakery and not rite pvegris- progress reports any more.


March 20 -

Im going back to werk at the bakery. Dr Strauss told Prof Nemur it was better I shoud go back to werk but I still cant tell anyone what the operashun was for and I have to come to the lab for 2 hrs evry nite after
werk for my tests and keep riting these dumb reports. They are going to pay me evry week like for a part time job because that was part of the
arraingment when they got the mony from the Welberg foundashun. I still dont know what that Welberg thing is. Miss Kinnian explaned me but I still dont

get it. So if I dint get smart why are they paying me to rite these dumb things. If their gonna pay me I'll do it. But its very hard to rite.

Im glad Im going back to werk because I miss my job at the bakery and all my frends and all the fun we have.

Dr Strauss says I shoud keep a notbook in my pockit for things I remembir. And I dont have to do the progress reports every day just when I think of
somthing or somthing speshul happins. I told him nothing speshul ever happins to me and it dont look like this speshul exper'tmint is going to happin

neither. He says dont get discouriged Charlie because it takes a long time and it happins slow and you cant notise it rite away. He explaned how it took a long time with Algernon before he got 3 times smarter then he was before.

Thats why Algernon beats me all the time in that amaze race because he had that operashun too. Hes a speshul mouse the 1st animil to stay smart so long after the operashun. I dint know he was a speshul mouse. That makes it

diffrint. I coud probaly do that amazed faster then a reglar mouse. Maybe some day I'll beat Algernon. Boy woud that be somthing. Dr Strauss says that so far Algernon looks like he mite be smart permanint and he says thats a good sine becaus we both had the same kind of operashun.

March 21 - We had a lot of fun at the bakery today. Joe Carp said hey look where Charlie had his operashun what did they do Charlie put some brains in. I was going to tell him about me getting smart but I remembered Prof Nemur said no. Then Frank Reilly said what did you do Charlie open a door the hard way. That made me laff. Their my frends and they really like me.

Their is a lot of werk to catch up. They dint have anyone to clean out the place because that was my job but they got a new boy Ernie to do the diliveries that I always done. Mr Donner said he decided not to fire him for a while to give me a chanse to rest up and not werk so hard. I told him I was alright and I can make my diliveries and clean up like I always done but Mr.Donner says we will keep the boy.

I said so what am I gonna do. And Mr Donner patted me on the shoulder and
says Charlie how old are you. I told him 32 years going on 33 my next
brithday. And how long you been here he said. I told him I dint know. He said
you came here seventeen years ago. Your Uncle Herman god rest his sole was my best frend. He brout you in here and he askd me to let you werk here and

look after you as best I eoud. And when he died 2 years later and your mother had you comited to the Warren home I got them to releese you on outside werk placmint. Seventeen years its been Charlie and I want you to know that the bakery bisness is not so good but like I always said you got a job here for

the rest of your life. So dont worry about me bringing in somebody to take your place. Youll never have to go back to that Warren home.

I aint worryd only what does he need Ernie for to diliver and werk around
here when I was always deliviring the packiges good. He says the boy needs the mony Charlie so Im going to keep him on as an aprentise to lern him to be a baker. You can be his asistent and help him out on diliverys when he needs it.

I never was a asistent before. Ernie is very smart but the other pepul in
the bakery dont like him so much. Their all my good fiends and we have lots of jokes and laffs here.

Some times somebody will say hey lookit Frank, or Joe or even Gimpy. He
really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I dont know why they say it but
they always lafl and I laff too. This morning Gimpy hes the head baker and he
has a bad foot and he limps he used my name when he shouted at Ernie because Ernie losst a birthday cake. He said Ernie for godsake you trying to be a Charlie Gordon. I dont know why he said that. I never lost any packiges.

I askd Mr Donner if I coud lern to be an aprentise baker like Ernie. I told him I coud lern it if he gave me a chanse.

Mr Donner looked at me for a long time funny because I gess I dont talk so much most of the time. And Frank herd me and he laffed and lafed until Mr Donner told him to shut up and go tend to his oven. Then Mr Donner said to me theirs lots of time for that Charlie. A bakers werk is very importint and

very complikated and you shoudnt worry about things like that.

I wish I coud tell him and all the other people about my real operashun. I wish it woud reely work alredy so I coud get smart like evrybody else.

March 24 - Prof Nemur and Dr Strauss came to my room tonight to see why I dont come in to the lab like I am suppose to. I told them I dont want to race
with Algernon no more. Prof Nemur said I dont have to for a while
but I shoud come in any way. He brout me a presint only it wasnt a presint

but just for lend. He said its a teeching mashine that werks like TV. It talks and makes picturs and I got to tern it on just before I go to sleep. I said your kidding. Why shoud I tern on a TV before I go to sleep. But Prof Nemur said if I want to get smart I got to do what he says. So I told
him I dint think I was goin to get smart anyway.

Then Dr Strauss came over and put his hand on my sholder and said Charlie you dont know it yet but your getting smarter all the time. You wont notise
it for a while like you dont notise how the hour hand on a clock moves. Thats the way it is with the changes in you. They are happining so slow you cant tell. But we can follow it from the tests and the way you act and talk and

your progress reports. He said Charlie youve got to have fayth in us and in yourself. We cant be sure it will be permanint but we are confidant that soon your going to be a very intellijent young man.

I said okay and Prof Nemur showed me how to werk the TV that reely wasnt a TV. I askd him what did it do. First he lookd sore again because I asked him
to explane me and he said I shoud just do what he told me. But Dr Strauss
said he shoud explane it to me because I was beginning to questien authorety. I dont no what that meens but Prof Nemur looked like he was going to bite his

lip off. Then he explaned me very slow that the mashine did lots of things to
my mind. Somethings it did just before I fall asleep like teach me things
when Im very sleepy and a little while after I start to fall asleep I still
hear the talk even if I dont see the picturs anymore. Other things is at nite
its suppose to make me have dreams and remembir things that happened a long time ago when I was a very littel kid.

Its scary.

Oh yes I forgot. I asked Prof Nemur when I can go back to Miss Kinnians class at the adult center and he said soon Miss Kinnian will come to the collidge testing center to teach me speshul. I am glad about that. I dint see her so much since the operashun but she is nice.

March 25 - That crazy TV kept me up all nite. How can I sleep with something yelling crazy things all night in my ears. And the nutty picturs. Wow. I dont know what it says when Im up so how am I going to know when Im sleeping. I asked Burt about it and he says its ok. He says my branes are lerning just before I got to sleep and that will help me when Miss Kinnian starts my lessons at the testing center. The testing center isnt a hospitil for animils

like I thougt before. Its a labortory for sience. I dont know what sience is exept Im helping it with this experimint.

Anyway I dont know about that TV. I think its crazy. If you can get smart when your going to sleep why do pepul go to school. I dont think that thing will werk. I use to watch the late show and the late late show on TV all the time before I went to sleep and it never made me smart. Maybe only certin movies make you smart. Maybe like quizz shows.

March 26 - How am I gonna work in the daytime if that thing keeps waking me up at nite. In the middel of the nite I woke up and I coudnt go back to sleep
because it kept saying remembir... remembir... remembir... So I think
I remembird something. I dont remembir exackly but it was about Miss Kinnian and the school where I lerned about reading. And how I went their.

A long time ago once I asked Joe Carp how he lerned to read and if I coud lern to read to. He laffed like he always done when I say something funny and he says to me Charlie why waste your time they cant put any branes in where there aint none. But Fanny Birden herd me and she askd her cusin who is a collidge studint at Beekman and she told me about the adult center for retarded pepul at the Beekman collidge.

She rote the name down on a paper and Frank laffed and said dont go getting so eddicated that you wont talk to your old frends. I said dont worry I will always keep my old frends even if I can read and rite. He was laffing and Joe Carp was laffing but Gimpy came in and told them to get back to making rolls.

They are all good frends to me.


 

March 28 - I got a headake. Its not from that TV this time. Dr Strauss showed me how to keep the TV turned low so now I can sleep. I dont hear a thing. And I still dont understand what it says. A few times I play it over in the
morning to find out what I lerned before I fell asleep and while I was
sleeping and I dont even know the words. Maybe its another langwidge or something. But most times it sounds american. But it talks too fast.

I askd Dr Strauss what good is it to get smart in my sleep if I want to be
smart when Im awake. He says its the same thing and I have two minds. Theres

the SUBCONSCIOUS and the CONSCIOUS (thats how you spell it) and one dont tell the other what its doing. They dont even talk to each other. Thats why I
dream. And boy have I been having crazy dreams. Wow. Ever since that night
TV. The late late late late late movie show.

I forgot to ask Dr Strauss if it was only me or if everybody has two minds like that.

I just looked up the word in the dicshunery Dr Strauss gave me:

SUBCONSCIOUS. adj. Of the nature of mental operations yet not present in consciousness; as, subconscious conflict of desires.) Theres more but I still dont know what it meens. This isnt a very good dicshunery for dumb people like me.

Anyway the headake is from the party. Joe Carp and
Frank Reilly invited me to go with them after work to
Hallorans Bar for some drinks. I dont like to drink wiskey
but they said we will have a good time. 

Then Joe Carp said I shoud show the girls how I mop out the toilet in the bakery and he got me a mop. I showed them and everyone laffed when I told them that Mr Donner said I was the best janiter and errand boy he ever had because I like my job and do it good and never come late or miss a day exept for my operashun.

I said Miss Kinnian always told me Charlie be proud of the work you do because you do your job good.

They gave me lots of drinks and Joe said Charlie is a card when hes potted. I think that means they like me. We have some good times but I cant wait to be smart like my best frends Joe Carp and Frank Reilly.

I dont remember how the party was over but they asked me to go around the corner to see if it was raining and when I came back there was no one their. Maybe they went to find me. I looked for them all over till it was late. But I got lost and I felt bad at myself for getting lost because I bet Algernon coud go up and down those streets a hundrid times and not get lost like I did.

Then I dont remember so good but Mrs Flynn says a nice poleecman brought me back home.

That same nite I dreamed about my mother and father only I coudnt see her face it was all wite and she was blurry. I was crying because we were in a big departmint store and I was losst and I coudnt find them and I ran up and down the rows around all the big cownters in the store. Then a man came and took me in a big room with benches and gave me a lolypop and tolld me a big boy like me shoudnt cry because my mother and father woud come to find me.

Anyway thats the dream and I got a headake and a big lump on my head and black and blue marks all over. Joe Carp says mabye I got rolled or the cop let me have it. I dont think poleecmen do things like that. But anyway I dont think I'll drink wiskey anymore.

March 29 -

I beet Algernon. I dint even know I beet him
until Burt Selden told me. Then the second time I lost because I got so exited. But after that I beet him 8 more
times. I must be getting smart to beat a smart mouse like
Algernon. But I dont feel smarter.

I wanted to race some more but Burt said thats enough for one day. He let me hold Algernon for a minit. Algernon is a nice mouse. Soft like cotton. He
blinks and when he opens his eyes their black and pink on the egos.

I asked can I feed him because I felt bad to beat him and I wanted to be
nice and make fiends. Burt said no Algernon is a very speshul mouse with an operashun like mine. He was the first of all the animals to stay smart so
long and he said that Algernon is so smart he has to solve a problem with a lock that changes every time he goes in to eat so he has to lem something new to get his food. That made me sad because if he coudnt lern he woudnt be able to eat and he would be hungry.

I dont think its right to make you pass a test to eat How woud Burt like to have to pass a test every time he wants to eat. I think I'll be frends with Algernon.

That reminds me. Dr Strauss says I shoud write down all my dreams and the things I think so when I come to his office I can tell them. I tolld him I
dont know how to think yet but he says he means more things like what I wrote about my mom and dad and about when I started school at Miss Kinnians or anything that happened before the operation is thinking and I wrote them in my progress report.

I didnt know I was thinking and remembering. Maybe that means something is happining to me. I dont feel different but I'm so exited I cant sleep.

Dr Strauss gave me some pink pills to make me sleep good. He says I got to

get lots of sleep because thats when most of the changes happin in my brane. 

March 30 - Tonite after werk Miss Kinnian came to the teeching room near the labatory. She looked glad to see me but nervus. She looks yunger then I remembired her.

I tolld her I was trying very hard to be smart. She said I have confidense in you Charlie the way you strugled so much to reed and rite better then all the others. I know you can do it. At werst you will have it all for a little wile
and your doing somthing for other retarded pepul.

We startid to reed a very hard book. I never red such a hard book before. Its
called Robinson Crusoe about a man who gets merooned on a dessert island. He's smart and figgers out all kinds of things so he can have a house and food
and hes a good swimmer. Only I feel sorry for him because hes all alone and
he has no frends. But I think their must be somebody else on the island because theres a picture of him with his funny umbrela looking at feetprints. I hope
he gets a frend and not be so lonely.

March 31 - Miss Kinnian teeches me how to spel better. She says look at a werd and close your eyes and say it over and over again until you remember. I have
lots of truble with through that you say THREW and enough and tough that you dont say ENEw and TEW. You got to say SNUFF and TUFF. Tbats how I use to rite it before I started to get smart. Im mixd up but Miss Kinnian says dont worry spelling is not suppose to make sence.

PROGRESS REPORT 9

April 1 - Everbody in the bakery came to see me today where I started my new job working by the dough-mixer. It happined like this. Oliver who works on
the mixer quit yesterday. I used to help him out before bringing the bags of flour over for him to put in the mixer. Anyway I dint know that I knew how to work the mixer. Its very hard and Oliver went to bakers school for one year before he could learn how to be an assistint baker.

But Joe Carp hes my friend he said Charlie why dont you take over Olivers
job. Everybody on the floor came around and they were all laughing and Frank Reilly said yes Charlie you been here long enough. Go ahead. Gimpy aint around and he wont know you tryed it. I was scared because Gimpy is the
head baker and he told me never to go near the mixer because I would get
hurt. Everyone said do it exept Fannie Birden who said stop it why dont you leave the poor man alone.

Frank Reilly said shut up Fanny its April fools day and if Charlie works on the mixer he might fix it good so we will all have the day off. I said I coudnt fix the mashine but I could work it because I been watching Oliver ever since I got back.

I worked the dough-mixer and everybody was surprised espeshully Frank Reilly. Fanny Birden got exited because she said it took Oliver 2 years to
learn how to mix the dough right and he went to bakers school. Bernie Bate who helps on the mashine said I did it faster then Oliver did and better. Nobody laffed. When Gimpy came back and Fanny told him he got sore at me for working on the mixer.

But she said watch him and see how he does it. They were playing him for an April Fool joke and he foold them instead. Gimpy watched and I knew he was sore at me because he dont like when people dont do what he tells them just like Prof Nemur. But he saw how I worked the mixer and he skratched his head and said I see it but I dont believe it. Then he called Mr Donner and told me

to work it again so Mr Donner could see it.

I was scared he was going to be angry and holler at me so after I was finished I said can I go back to my own job now. I got to sweep out the front of the bakery behind the counter. Mr Donner looked at me funny for a long time. Then he said this must be some kind of April fools joke you guys are playing on me. Whats the catch.

Gimpy said thats what I thought it was some kind of a gag. He limped all around the mashine and he said to Mr Donner I dont understand it either but Charlie knows how to handle it and I got to admit it he does a better job
then Oliver.

Everybody was crowded around and talking about it and I got scared because they all looked at me funny and they were exited. Frank said I told you there
is something peculier lately about Charlie. And Joe Carp says yeah I know what you mean. Mr Donner sent everybody back to work and he took me out to the front of the store with him.

He said Charlie I dont know how you done it but it looks like you finally

learned something. I want you to be carefull and do the best you can do. You got yourself a new job with a 5 doller raise.

I said I dont want a new job because I like to clean up and sweep and deliver and do things for my friends but Mr Donner said never mind your friends I need you for this job. I dont think much of a man who dont want to advance.

I said whats advance mean. He scratched his head and looked at me over his glasses. Never mind that Charlie. From now on you work that mixer. Thats advance.

So now instead of delivering packiges and washing out the toilets and dumping the garbage. Im the new mixer. Thats advance. Tomorrow I will tell Miss Kinnian. I think she will be happy but I dont know why Frank and Joe are mad at me. I asked Fanny and she said never mind those fools. This is April Fools day and the joke backfired and made them the fools instead of you.

I asked Joe to tell me what was the joke that backfired and he said go jump in the lake. I guess their mad at me because I worked the mashine but they didnt get the day off like they thought. Does that mean Im getting smarter.


April 3 -

Finished Robinson Crusoe. I want to find out more about what happens to him but Miss Kinnian says thats all there is.

April 4 -

Miss Kinnian says Im learning fast. She read some of my progress reports and she looked at me kind of funny. She says Im a fine person and I'll show them all. I asked her why. She said never mind but I shouldnt feel bad if I find out that everybody isnt nice like I think. She said for a person who God gave so little to you did more than a lot of people with brains they never even used. I said that all my friends are smart people and their good. They like me and they never did anything that wasnt nice. Then she gotsomething in her eye and she had to run out to the ladys room.

While I was sitting in the teaching room waiting for her I was wondering
about how Miss Kinnian was a nice lady like my mother use to be. I think I remember my mother told me to be good and always be friendly to people. She said but always be careful because some people dont understand and they might think you are trying to make trouble.

That makes me remember when mom had to go away and they put me to stay in Mrs Leroys house who lived next door. Mom went to the hospital. Dad said she wasnt sick or nothing but she went to the hospital to bring me back a baby
sister or a brother. (I still dont know how they do that) I told them I want

a baby brother to play with and I dont know why they got me a sister instead but she was nice like a doll. Only she cryd all the time.

I never hurt her or nothing.

They put her in a crib in their room and once I heard Dad say dont worry Charlie wouldnt harm her.

She was like a bundle all pink and screaming sometimes that I couldnt sleep. And when I went to sleep she woke me up in the nighttime. One time when they
were in the kitchen and I was in my bed she was crying. I got up to pick her
up and hold her to get quiet the way mom does. But then Mom came in yelling and took her away. And she slapped me so hard I fell on the bed.

Then she startid screaming. Dont you ever touch her again. Youll hurt her. She's a baby. You got no business touching her. I dint know it then but I
guess I know it now that she thought I was going to hurt the baby because I
was too dumb to know what I was doing. Now that makes me feel bad because I would never of hurt the baby.

When I go to Dr Straus office I got to tell him about


April 6 -

Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a
tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better,
she said, somebody, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the
right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont, see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it,

But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so I'll, use them, too.

April 7 - I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation. Miss Kinnian told me to look up long words in the dictionary to learn to spell them. I said whats the difference if you can read it anyway. She said its part of your education so from now on I'll look up all the words Im not sure how to spell. It takes a long time to write that way but I think Im remembering more and more.

Anyway thats how come I got the word punctuation right. Its that way in the dictionary. Miss Kinnian says a period is punctuation too, and there are lots of other marks to learn. I told her I thought she meant all the periods had
to have tails and be called commas. But she said no.

She said; You, got. to-mix?them!up: She showd? me" how, to mix! them; up, and now! I can. mix (up all? kinds of punctuation- in, my. writing! There"
are lots, of rules; to learn? but. Im' get'ting them in my head:

One thing? I, like: about, Dear Miss Kinnian: (thats~ the way? it goes; in a business, letter (if I ever go! into business?) is that, she: always; gives

me' a reason" when-I ask. She"s a genius! I wish? I cou'd be smartlike-her; Punctuation, is? fun!


April 8 -

What a dope I am! I didn't even understand what she was talking about. I read the grammar book last night and it explains the whole thing. Then I saw it was the same way as Miss Kinnian was trying to tell me, but I
didn't get it. I got up in the middle of the night and the whole thing
straightened out in my mind.

Miss Kinnian said that the TV working, just before I fell asleep and during the night, helped out. She said I reached a plateau. That's like the flat top of a hill.

After I figured out how punctuation worked, I read over all my old progress reports from the beginning. Boy, did I have crazy spelling and punctuation!
I told Miss Kinnian I ought to go over the pages and fix all the mistakes,
but she said, "No, Charlie, Professor Nemur wants them just as they are. That's why he lets you keep them after they're photostated-to see your own

progress. You're coming along fast, Charlie."

That made me feel good. After the lesson I went down and played with Algernon. We don't race any more.


April 10 -

I feel sick. Not like for a doctor, but inside my chest it feels empty, like getting punched and a heartburn at the same time.

I wasn't going to write about it, but I guess I got to, because it's
important. Today was the first day I ever stayed home from work on purpose.

Last night Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to a party. There were lots of girls and Gimpy was there and Ernie too. I remembered how sick I got last time I drank too much, so I told Joe I didn't want to drink anything. He gave me a plain coke instead. It tasted funny, but I thought it was just a bad
taste in my mouth.

We had a lot of fun for a while.

"Dance with Ellen," Joe said. "She'll teach you the steps." Then he winked at her like he had something in his eye.

She said, "Why don't you leave him alone?"

He slapped me on the back. "This is Charlie Gordon, my buddy, my pal. He's
no ordinary guy-he's been promoted to working on the dough-mixing machine. All I did was ask you to dance with him. What's wrong with that?"

So she danced with me. I fell three times and I couldn't understand why because no one else was dancing besides Ellen and me. And all the time I was tripping because somebody's foot was always sticking out.

They were all around in a circle watching and laughing at the way we were doing the steps. They laughed harder every time I fell, and I was laughing too because it was so funny. But the last time it happened I didn't laugh. I picked myself up and Joe pushed me down again.

Then I saw the look on Joe's face and it gave me a funny feeling in my stomach.

"He's a scream," one of the girls said. Everybody was laughing.

"Oh, you were right, Frank," choked Ellen. "He's a one man side show." Then she said, "Here, Charlie, have a fruit." She gave me an apple, but when I bit into it, it was fake.

Then Frank started laughing and he said, "I told ya he'd eat it. C'n you imagine anyone dumb enough to eat wax fruit?"

Joe said, "I ain't laughed so much since we sent him around the corner to see if it was raining that night we ditched him at Halloran's."

Then I saw a picture that I remembered in my mind when I was a kid and the children in the block let me play with them, hide-and-go-seek and I was IT. After I counted up to ten over and over on my fingers I went to look for the
others. I kept looking until it got cold and dark and I had to go home.

But I never found them and I never knew why.

What Frank said reminded me. That was the same thing that happened at Halloran's. And that was what Joe and the rest of them were doing. Laughing at me. And the kids playing hide-and-go-seek were playing tricks on me and they were laughing at me too.

The people at the party were a bunch of blurred faces all looking down and laughing at me.

"Look at him. His face is red." "He's blushing. Charlie's blushing."

I didn't know what to do or where to turn. Everyone was laughing at me and all of a sudden I felt naked. I wanted to hide myself so they wouldn't see. I ran out of the apartment. It
was a large apartment house with lots of halls and I couldn't find my way to the staircase. I forgot all about the elevator. Then, after, I found the

stairs and ran out into the street and walked for a long time before I went to my room. I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me.

Now I know what they mean when they say "to pull a Charlie Gordon." I'm ashamed.

April 13 -

Still didn't go back to work at the bakery. I told Mrs Flynn, my landlady, to call and tell hf. Donner I'm sick. Mrs Flynn looks at me lately like she's scared of me.

I think it's a good thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me. I
thought about it a lot. It's because I'm so dumb and I don't even know when
I'm doing something dumb. People think it's funny when a dumb person can't do things the same way they can.

Anyway, now I know I'm getting a little smarter every day. I know
punctuation, and I can spell good. I like to look up all the hard words in
the dictionary and I remember them. And I try to write these progress reports very careful but that's hard to do. I am reading a lot now, and Miss Kinnian
says I read very fast. And I even understand a lot of the things I'm reading about, and they stay in my mind. There are times when I can close my eyes and think of a page and it all comes back like a picture.

But other things come into my head too. Sometimes I close my eyes and I see a clear picture. Like this morning just after I woke up, I was laying in bed
with my eyes open. It was like a big hole opened up in the walls of my mind and I can just walk through. I think its far back... a long time ago when

I first started working at Donner's Bakery. I see the street where the bakery is. Fuzzy at first and then it gets patchy with some things so real they are right here now in front of me, and other things stay blurred, and I'm not sure...


April 15 -

I'm reading a lot these days and almost everything is staying in my mind. Besides history and geography and arithmetic, Miss Kinnian says I should start learning foreign languages. Prof. Nemur gave me some more tapes to play while I sleep. I still don't know how the conscious and unconscious

mind works, but Dr Strauss says not to worry yet. He made me promise that when I start learning college subjects in a couple of weeks I won't read any books on psychology-that is, until he gives me permission. He says it will confuse me and make me think about psychological theories instead of about my own ideas and feelings. But it's okay to read novels. This week I read The

Great Gatsby, An American Tragedy, and Look Homeward, Angel. 
 

April 16 -

I feel a lot better today, but I'm still angry that all the time
people were laughing and making fun of me. When I become intelligent the way Prof. Nemur says, with much more than twice my IQ of 70, then maybe
people will like me and be my friends.

I'm not sure what IQ is anyway. Prof. Nemur said it was something that measured how intelligent you

were-like a scale in the drugstore weighs pounds. But Dr Strauss had a big
argument with him and said an IQ didn't weigh intelligence at all. He said an IQ showed how much intelligence you could get, like the numbers on
the outside of a measuring cup. You still had to fill the
cup up with stuff.

When I asked Burt Seldon, who gives me my intelligence tests and works with Algernon, he said that some people would say both of them were wrong and according to the things he's been reading up on, the IQ measures a lot of different things including some of the things you learned already and it

really isn't a good measure of intelligence at all.

So I still don't know what IQ is, and everybody says it's something different. Mine is about a hundred now, and it's going to be over a hundred and fifty soon, but they'll still have to fill me up with the stuff. I didn't
want to say anything, but I don't see how if they don't know what it is, or where it is - how they know how much of it you've got.

Prof Nemur says I have to take a Rorschach Test the day after tomorrow. I wonder what that is.


April 18 -

I found out what a Rorschach is. It's the test with the inkblots,

the one I took before the operation. As soon as I saw what it was, I got frightened. I knew Burt was going to ask me to find the pictures, and I knew I wouldn't be able to. I was thinking, if only there was some way of knowing what kind of pictures were hidden there. Maybe there weren't any pictures at all. Maybe it was just a trick to see if I was dumb enough to look for something that wasn't there. Just thinking about it made me sore at him.

"All right, Charlie," he said, "you've seen these cards before, remember?" "Of course, I remember."
The way I said it, he knew I was angry, and he looked up at me surprised. "Anything wrong, Charlie?"

"No, nothing's wrong. Those inkblots upset me."

He smiled and shook his head. "Nothing to be upset about. This is just one of the standard personality tests. Now I want you to look at this card. What might this be? What do you see on this card? People see all sorts of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it might be for you-what it makes you think of."

I was shocked. I stared at the card and then at him. That wasn't what I had expected him to say at all.

"You mean there are no pictures hidden in those inkblots?" Burt frowned and took off his glasses. "What?"

"Pictures! Hidden in the inkblots! Last time you told me that everyone could see them and you wanted me to find them too."

"No, Charlie. I couldn't have said that."

"What do you mean?" I shouted at him. Being so afraid of the inkblots had made me angry at myself and at Burt too. "That's what you said to me. Just because you're smart enough to go to college doesn't mean you have to make fun of me. I'm sick and tired of everybody laughing at me."

I don't recall ever being so angry before. I don't think it was at Burt
himself, but suddenly everything exploded. I tossed the Rorschach cards on the table and walked out. Professor Nemur was passing by in the hall, and

when I rushed past him without saying hello he knew something was wrong. He and Burt caught up with me as I was about to go down in the elevator.

"Charlie," said Nemur, grabbing my arm. "Wait a minute. What is this all about?"

I shook free and nodded at Burt. "I'm sick and tired of people making fun of me. That's all. Maybe before I didn't know any better, but now I do, and I don't like it."

"Nobody's making fun of you here, Charlie," said Nemur.

"What about the inkblots? Last time Burt told me there were pictures in the ink-that everyone could see, and I-"

"Look, Charlie, would you like to hear the exact words Burt said to you, and your answers as well? We have a tape-recording of that testing session. We can replay it and let you hear exactly what was said."

I went back with them to the psych office with mixed feelings. I was sure they had made fun of me and tricked me when I was too ignorant to know better. My anger was an exciting feeling, and I didn't give it up easily. I was ready to fight.

As Nemur went to the files to get the tape, Burt explained: "Last time, I used almost the exact words I used today. It's a requirement of these tests that the procedure be the same each time it's administered."

"I'll believe that when I hear it"

A look passed between them. I felt the blood rush to my face again. They
were laughing at me. But then I realized what I had just said, and hearing myself I understood the reason for the look. They weren't laughing. They knew what was happening to me. I had reached a new level, and anger and suspicion were my first reactions to the world around me.

Burt's voice boomed over the tape recorder:

"Now I want you to look at this card, Charlie. What might this be? What do you see on this card? People see all kinds of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it makes you think of... "

The same words, almost the same tone of voice he had used minutes ago in the lab. And then I heard my answers-childish, impossible things. And I dropped limply into the chair beside Professor Nemur's desk. "Was that really me?"

I went back to the lab with Burt, and we went on with the Rorschach. We went through the cards slowly. This time my responses were different. I "saw" things in the inkblots. A pair of bats tugging at each other. Two men fencing with swords. I imagined all sorts of things. But even so, I found myself not trusting Burt completely any more. I kept turning the cards around, checking the backs to see if there was anything there I was supposed to catch.

I peeked, while he was making his notes. But it was all in code that looked like this:

WF + A DdF-Ad orig. WF-A SF + obj

The test still doesn't make sense. It seems to me that anyone could make up lies about things he didn't really see. How could they know I wasn't making fools of them by saying things I didn't really imagine?

Maybe I'll understand it when Dr Strauss lets me read up on psychology. It's getting harder for me to write down all my thoughts and feelings because
I know that people are reading them. Maybe it would be better if I could keep some of these reports private for a while. I'm going to ask Dr.Strauss. Why should it suddenly start to bother me?


April 22 -

People at the bakery are changing. Not only ignoring me. I can feel the hostility. Donner is arranging for me to join the baker's union, and I've gotten another raise. The rotten thing is that all of the pleasure is gone because the others resent me. In a way, I can't blame them. They don't understand what has happened to me, and I can't tell them. People are not proud of me the way I expected-not at all.

Still, I've got to have someone to talk to. I'm going to ask Miss Kinnian to go to a movie tomorrow night to celebrate my raise. If I can get up the nerve.

April 24 -

Professor Nemur finally agreed with Dr Strauss and me that it will be impossible for me to write down everything if I know it's immediately read by people at the lab. I've tried to be completely honest about everything, no matter who I was talking about, but there
are things I can't put down unless I can keep them private-at least for a while.

Now, I'm allowed to keep back some of these more personal reports, but before the final report to the Welberg Foundation, Professor Nemur will read through everything to decide what part of it should be published. What happened today at the lab was very upsetting.

I dropped by the office earlier this evening to ask Dr Strauss or Professor Nemur if they thought it would be all right for me to ask Alice Kinnian out
to a movie, but before I could knock I heard them arguing with each other. I shouldn't have stayed, but it's hard to break the habit of listening because people have always spoken and acted as if I weren't there, as if they never cared what I overheard.

I heard someone bang on the desk, and then Professor Nemur shouted: "I've already informed the convention committee that we will present the paper at Chicago."

Then I heard Dr Strauss' voice: "But you're wrong, Harold. Six weeks from now is still too soon. He's still changing."

And then Nemur: "We've predicted the pattern correctly so far. We're justified in making an interim report. I tell you, Jay, there's nothing to be afraid of. We've succeeded. It's all positive. Nothing can go wrong now."

Strauss: "This is too important to all of us to bring it out into the open prematurely. You're taking the authority on yourself-"

Nemur: "You forget that I'm the senior member of this project."

Strauss: "And you forget that you're not the only one with a reputation to consider. If we claim too much now, our whole hypothesis will come under fire."

Nemur: "I'm not afraid of regression any more. I've checked and rechecked everything. An interim report will do no harm. I feel sure nothing can go wrong now."

The argument went on that way with Strauss saying that Nemur had his eye on the Chair of Psychology at Hallston, and Nemur saying that Strauss was riding on the coattails of his psychological research. Then Strauss said that the project had as much to do with his techniques in psychosurgery and enzyme-injection patterns, as with Nemur's theories, and that someday thousands of neurosurgeons all over the world would be using his methods, but at this point Nemur reminded him that those new techniques would never have come about if not for his original theory.

They called each other names-opportunist, cynic, pessimist-and I found myself frightened. Suddenly, I realized I no longer had the right to stand there outside the office and listen to them without their knowing it. They might not have cared when I was too feeble-minded to know what was going on, but now that I could understand they wouldn't want me to hear it. I left without waiting for the outcome.

It was dark, and I walked for a long time trying to figure out why I was so frightened. I was seeing them clearly for the first time-not gods or even heroes, but just two men worried about getting something out of their work.

Yet, if Nemur is right and the experiment is a success, what does it matter? There's so much to do, so many plans to make.

I'll wait until tomorrow to ask them about taking Miss Kinnian to a movie to celebrate my raise.

 

May 20 -

I've been fired from my job at the bakery. I know it was foolish of me to hang on to the past, but there was something about the place with its

white brick walls browned by oven heat... It was home to me. What did I do to make them hate me so?

I can't blame Donner. He's got to think of his business, and the other

employees. And yet, he's been closer to me than a father.

He called me into his office, cleared the statements and bills off the solitary chair beside his roll-top desk, and without looking up at me, he said, "I've been meaning to talk to you. Now is as good a time as any."

It seems foolish now, but as I sat there staring at him -- short, chubby, with the ragged light-brown moustache comically drooping over his upper lip-it was as if both of me, the old Charlie and the new, were sitting on that chair, frightened at what Old Mr Donner was going to say.

"Charlie, your Uncle Herman was a good friend of mine. I kept my promise to him to keep you on the job, good times and bad, so that you didn't ever want for a dollar in your pocket and a place to lay your head without being put away in that home."

"The bakery is my home - "

"And I treated you like my own son who gave up his life for his country. And when Herman died-how old were you? seventeen? more like a six-year-old boy-I swore to myself... I said, Arthur Donner, as long as you got a bakery and
a business over your head, you're going to look after Charlie. He is going to have a place to work, a bed to sleep in, and bread in his mouth. When they committed you to that Warren place, I told them how you would work for me, and I would take care of you. You didn't spend even one night in that place. I
got you a room and I looked after you. Now, have I kept that solemn promise?"

I nodded, but I could see by the way he was folding and unfolding his bills that he was having trouble. And as much as I didn't want to know-I knew. "I've tried my best to do a good job. I've worked hard..."

"I know, Charlie. Nothing's wrong with your work. But something happened to you, and I don't understand what it means. Not only me. Everyone has been talking about it. I've had them in here a dozen times in the last few
weeks. They're all upset. Charlie, I got to let you go.

I tried to stop him but he shook his head.

"There was a delegation in to see me last night. Charlie, I got my business to hold together."

He was staring at his hands, turning the paper over and over as if he hoped to find something on it that was not there before. "I'm sorry, Charlie."

"But where will I go?"

He peered up at me for the first time since we'd walked into his cubbyhole office. "You know as well as I do that you don't need to work here any more."

"Mr Donner, I've never worked anywhere else."

"Let's face it. You're not the Charlie who came in here seventeen years ago-not even the same Charlie of four months ago. You haven't talked about it. It's your own affair. Maybe a miracle of some kind-who knows? But you've changed into a very smart young man. And operating the dough mixer and delivering packages is no work for a smart young man."

He was right, of course, but something inside me wanted to make him change his mind.

"You've got to let me stay, Mr Donner. Give me another chance. You said yourself that you promised Uncle Herman I would have a job here for as long as I needed it. Well, I still need it, Mr Donner."

"You don't, Charlie. If you did then I'd tell them I don't care about their delegations and their petitions, and I'd stick up for you against all of them. But as it is now, they're all scared to death of you. I got to think of my own family too."

"What if they change their minds? Let me try to convince them." I was making it harder for him than he expected. I knew I should stop, but I couldn't
control myself. "I'll make them understand," I pleaded.

"All right," he sighed finally. "Go ahead, try. But you're only going to hurt yourself."

As I came out of his office, Frank Reilly and Joe Carp walked by me, and I knew what he had said was true. Having me around to look
at was too much for them. I made them all uncomfortable.

Frank had just picked up a tray of rolls and both he and Joe turned when I called. "Look, Charlie, I'm busy. Maybe later-"

"No," I insisted. "Now-right now. Both of you have been avoiding me. Why?"

Frank, the fast talker, the ladies' man, the arranger, studied me for a
moment and then set the tray down on the table. "Why? I'll tell you why. Because all of a sudden you're a big shot, a know-it-all, a brainl Now you're
a regular whiz kid, an egghead. Always with a book, always with all the
answers. Well, I'll tell you something. You think you're better than the rest
of us here? Okay, go someplace else."

"But what did I do to you?"

"What did he do? Hear that, Joe? I'll tell you what you did, Mister Gordon. You come pushing in here with your ideas and suggestions and make the rest of us all look like a bunch of dopes. But I'll tell you something. To me you're
still a moron. Maybe I don't understand some of them big words or the names of the books, but I'm as good as you are-better even."

"Yeah." Joe nodded, turning to emphasize the point to Gimpy who had just come up behind him.

"I'm not asking you to be my friends," I said, "or have anything to do with me. Just let me keep my job. Mr Donner says it's up to you."

And so it went. Most of them felt the way Joe and Frank and Gimpy did. It had been all right as long as they could laugh at me and appear clever at my expense, but now they were feeling inferior to the moron. I began to see that by my astonishing growth I had made them shrink and emphasized their inadequacies. I had betrayed them, and they hated me for it.

Fanny Birden was the only one who didn't think I should be forced to leave, and despite their pressure and threats, she had been the only one not to sign the petition.

"Which don't mean to say," she remarked, "that I don't think there's
something mighty strange about you, Charlie. The way you've changed! I don't know. You used to be a good, dependable man -- ordinary, not too bright maybe, but honest-and who knows what you done to yourself to get so smart all of a sudden. Like everybody's been saying-it ain't right."

"But what's wrong with a person wanting to be more intelligent, to acquire knowledge, and understand himself and the world?"

"If you'd read your Bible, Charlie, you'd know that it's not meant for man
to know more than was given to him to know by the Lord in the first place. The fruit of that tree was forbidden to man. Charlie, if you done anything
you wasn't supposed to-you know, like with the devil or something-maybe it ain't too late to get out of it. Maybe you could go back to being the good simple man you was before."

"There's no going back, Fanny. 'I haven't done anything wrong. I'm like a man born blind who has been given a chance to see light. That can't be sinful. Soon there'll be millions like me all over the world. Science can do

it, Fanny."

She stared down at the bride and groom on the wedding cake she was decorating and I could see her lips barely move as she whispered: "It was
evil when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. It was evil when they saw they was naked, and learned about lust and shame. And they was driven out of Paradise and the gates was closed to them. If not for that none of us
would have to grow old and be sick and die."

There was nothing more to say, to her or to the rest of them. None of them
would look into my eyes. I can still feel the hostility. Before, they had
laughed at me, despising me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hated me for my knowledge and understanding. Why? What in God's name did they want of me?

This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I knew and loved, driven me out of the bakery. Now, I'm more alone than ever before. I wonder what would happen if they put Algernon back in the big cage with some of the other mice. Would they turn against him?

PROGRESS REPORT 12

June 8 - What drives me out of the apartment to prowl

through the city? I wander through the streets alone-not
the relaxing stroll of a summer night, but the tense hurry
to get-where? Down alleyways, looking into doorways,
peering into half-shuttered windows, wanting someone to
talk to and yet afraid to meet anyone. Up one street, and
down another, through the endless labyrinth, hurling myself against the neon cage of the city. Searching... for what?

 

June 16 - Called Alice, but hung up before she answered. Today I found a furnished apartment. Ninety-five dollars a month is more than I planned to spend, but it's on Forty-third and Tenth Avenue and I can get to the library
in ten minutes to keep up with my reading and study. The apartment is on the fourth floor, four rooms, and there's a rented piano in it. The landlady says that one of these days the rental service will pull it out, but maybe by that time I can learn to play it.

Algernon is a pleasant companion. At mealtimes he takes his place at the small gateleg table. He likes pretzels, and today he took a sip of beer while we watched the ball game on TV. I think he rooted for the Yankees.

I'm going to move most of the furniture out of the second bedroom and use the room for Algernon. I plan to build him a three-dimensional maze out of scrap plastic that I can pick up cheaply downtown. There are some complex maze variations I'd like him to learn to be sure he, keeps in shape. But I'm going to see if I can find some motivation other than food. There must be other rewards that will induce him to solve problems.

Solitude gives me a chance to read and think, and now that the memories are coming through again-to rediscover my past, to find out who and what I really am. If anything should go wrong, I'll have at least that.


June 21 -

I've added time sequences of increasing complexity to the three-dimensional maze, and Algernon

learns them easily. There is no need to motivate him with
food or water. He appears to learn for the sake of solving

the problem-success appears to be its own reward.

But, as Burt pointed out at the convention, his behavior is erratic.

Sometimes after, or even during a run, he will rage, throw himself against the walls of the maze, or curl up and refuse to work at all. Frustration? Or something deeper?


June 24 -

Today I went on a strange kind of antiintellectual binge.  I went to Times Square, from movie house to movie house, immersing myself in westerns and horror movies-the way I used to. Each time, sitting through the picture, I would find myself

whipped with guilt. I'd walk out in the middle of the picture and wander into another one. I told myself I was looking for something in the make-believe screen world that was missing from my new life.

Then, in a sudden intuition, right outside the Keno Amusement Center, I knew it wasn't the movies I wanted, but the audiences. I wanted to be with the people around me in the darkness.

Usually, when I'm exhausted from walking, I go back to the apartment and
drop off into a deep sleep, but tonight instead of going up to my own place
I went to the diner. There was a new dishwasher, a boy of about sixteen, and there was something familiar about him, his movements, the look in his eyes. And then, clearing away the table behind me, he dropped some dishes.

They crashed to the floor, shattering and sending bits of white china under
the tables. He stood there, dazed and frightened, holding the empty tray in his hand. The whistles and catcalls from the customers (cries of "hey, there go the profits!"... "Mazel tov!" ...and "well, he didn't work here very long .." which invariably seems to follow the breaking of dishware in a public restaurant) confused him.

When the owner came to see what the excitement was about, the boy cowered-threw up his arms as if to ward off a blow.

"All right! All right, you dope," shouted the man, "don't just stand there! Get the
broom and sweep up that mess. A broom ..a broom! you idiot! It's in the kitchen. Sweep up all the pieces."

When the boy saw that he was not going to be punished, his frightened expression disappeared, and he smiled and hummed as he came back with the broom. A few of the rowdier customers kept up the remarks, amusing themselves at his expense.

"Here, sonny, over here. There's a nice piece behind you ..: '

"C'mon, do it again..."
"He's not so dumb. It's easier to break 'em than to wash 'em ..: '

As the boy's vacant eyes moved across the crowd of amused onlookers, he slowly mirrored their smiles and finally broke into an uncertain grin at the joke which he did not understand.

I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile-the wide, bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please, and I realized what I had recognized in him. They were laughing at him because he was retarded.

And at first I had been amused along with the rest.

Suddenly, I was furious at myself and all those who were smirking at him. I wanted to pick up the dishes and throw them. I wanted to smash their laughing faces. I jumped up and shouted: "Shut up! Leave him alone! He can't understand. He can't help what he is... but for God's sake, have some
respectl He's a human beingl"

The restaurant grew silent. I cursed myself for losing control and creating
a scene, and I tried not to look at the boy as I paid my check and walked out without touching my food. I felt ashamed for both of us.

How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes-how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence. It
infuriated me to remember that not too long ago I - like this boy had foolishly played the clown. And I had almost forgotten.

Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.

I have often reread my early progress reports and seen the illiteracy, the childish naivete, the mind of low intelligence peering from a dark room, through the keyhole, at the dazzling light outside. In my dreams and memories I've seen Charlie smiling happily and uncertainly at what people around him were saying. Even in my dullness I knew I was inferior. Other people had something I lacked-something denied me. In my mental blindness, I had believed it was somehow connected with the ability to read and write, and I was sure that if I could get those skills I would have intelligence too.

Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.
A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows

hunger.

This day was good for me. I've got to stop this childish worrying about myself-my past and my future. Let me give something of myself to others. I've got to use my knowledge and skills to work in the field of increasing human intelligence. Who is better equipped? Who else has lived in both worlds?

Tomorrow, I'm going to get in touch with the board of directors at the
Welberg Foundation and ask for permission to do some independent work on the project. If they'll let me, I may be able to help them. I have some ideas.

There is so much that can be done with this technique, if it is perfected. If
I could be made into a genius, what about the more than five million
mentally retarded in the United States? What about the countless millions all over the world, and those yet unborn destined to be retarded? What fantastic levels might be achieved by using this technique on normal people. On geniuses?

There are so many doors to open I am impatient to apply my own knowledge and skills to the problem. I've got to make them all see that this is something important for me to do. I'm sure the Foundation will grant me permission.

But I can't be alone any more. I have to tell Alice about it.


June 25 -

I called Alice today. I was nervous, and I must have sounded incoherent, but it was good to hear her voice, and she sounded happy to hear from me. She agreed to see me, and I took a taxi uptown, impatient at the slowness with which we moved.

Before I could knock, she opened the door and threw her arms around me.

"Charlie, we've been so worried about you. I had horrible visions of you dead in an alleyway, or wandering around skid row with amnesia. Why didn't you let us know you were all right? You could have done that."

"Don't scold me. I had to be alone for a while to find some answers." "Come in the kitchen. I'll make some coffee. What have you been doing?"

"Days-I've been thinking, reading, and writing; and nights-wandering in search of myself. And I've discovered that Charlie is watching me."

"Don't talk like that," she shuddered. "This business about being watched isn't real. You've built it up in your mind."

"I can't help feeling that I'm not me. I've usurped his place and locked him
out the way they locked me out of the bakery. What I mean to say is that Charlie Gordon exists in the past, and the past is real. You can't put up a new building on a site until you destroy the old one, and the old Charlie
can't be destroyed. He exists. 

"Somehow I've become separated emotionally from
everyone and everything. And what I was really searching
for out there in the dark streets-the last damned place I
could ever find it was a way to make myself a part of
people again emotionally, while still retaining my freedom intellectually. I've got to grow up. For me it means everything..."

I talked on and on, spewing out of myself every doubt and fear that bubbled to the surface. She was my sounding board and she sat there hypnotized. I felt myself grow warm, feverish, until I thought my body was on fire. I was burning out the infection in front of someone I cared about, and that made all the difference.


June 29 -

Before I go back to the lab I'm going to finish

the projects I've started since I left the convention. I
phoned Landsdoff at the New Institute for Advanced
Study, about the possibility of utilizing the pairproduction nuclear photoeffect for exploratory work in

biophysics. At first he thought I was a crackpot, but after
I pointed out the flaws in his article in the New Institute
Journal he kept me on the phone for nearly an hour. He
wants me to come to the Institute to discuss my ideas
with his group. I might take him up on it after I've finished my work at the lab-if there is time. That's the

problem, of course. I don't know how much time I have. A month? A year? The rest of my life? That depends on what I find out about the psychophysical side-effects of the experiment.


July 9 -

A terrible thing happened today. Algernon bit me. 

Algernon came into the reward box and snapped at me. His teeth caught my sleeve and he hung on until I shook him loose.

He calmed down after that. I observed him for more than an hour afterward. He seems listless and confused, and though he still learns new problems
without external rewards, his performance is peculiar. Instead of the careful, determined movements down the maze corridors, his actions are rushed and out of control. Time and again he turns into a corner too quickly and crashes into a barrier. There is a strange sense of urgency in his behavior.

I hesitate to make a snap judgment. It could be many things. But now I've got to get him back to the lab. Whether or not I hear from the Foundation about my special grant, I'm going to call Nemur in the morning.

PROGRESS REPORT 15

July 12 - Nemur, Strauss, Burt, and a few of the others on the project were waiting for me in the psych office. They tried to make me feel welcome but I could see how

anxious Burt was to take Algernon, and I turned him over. No one said anything, but
I knew that Nemur would not soon forgive me for going over his head and getting in touch with the Foundation. But it had been necessary. Before I returned to
Beekman, I had to be assured they would permit me to begin an independent study of the project. Too much time would be wasted if I had to account to Nemur for everything I did.

He had been informed of the Foundation's decision, and my reception was a cold and formal one. He held out his hand, but there was no smile on his face. "Charlie," be said, "we're all glad you're back and going to work with us. Jayson called and told me the Foundation was putting you to work on the project. This staff and the lab are at your disposal. The computer center has assured us that your work will have priority-and of course if I can help in anyway .."

He was doing his utmost to be cordial, but I could see by his face that he
was skeptical. After all, what experience did I have with experimental psychology? What did I know about the techniques that he had spent so many years developing? Well, as I say, he appeared cordial, and willing to suspend judgment. There isn't much else he can do now. If I don't come up with an explanation for Algernon's behavior, all of his work goes down the drain, but

if I solve the problem I bring in the whole crew with me.

I went into the lab where Burt was watching Algernon in one of the multiple problem boxes. He sighed and shook his head. "He's forgotten a lot. Most of his complex responses seem to have been wiped out. He's solving problems on a much more primitive level than I would have expected."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Well, in the past he was able to figure out simple patterns-in that
blind-door run, for example: every other door, every third door, red doors only, or the green doors only, but now he's been through that run three times and he's still using trial and error."

"Could it be because he was away from the lab for so long?"

"Could be. We'll let him get used to things again and see how he works out tomorrow."

I had been in the lab many times before this, but now I was here to learn everything it had to offer. I had to absorb procedures in a few days that the others had taken years to learn. Burt and I spent four hours going through the lab section by section, as I tried to familiarize myself with the total picture. When we were all through I noticed one door we had not looked into.

"What's in there?"

"The freeze and the incinerator." He pushed open the heavy door and turned on the light. "We freeze our specimens before we dispose of them in the incinerator. It helps cut down the odors if we control decomposition." He turned to leave, but I stood there for a moment.

"Not Algernon," I said. "Look... if and... when... I mean I don't
want him dumped in there. Give him to me. I'll take care of him myself." He didn't laugh. He just nodded. Nemur had told him that from now on I could have anything I wanted.

Time was the barrier. If I was going to find out the answers for myself I had to get to work immediately. I got lists of books from Burt, and notes from Strauss and Nemur. Then, on the way out, I got a strange notion.

"Tell me," I asked Nemur, "I just got a look at your incinerator for disposing of experimental animals. What plans have been made for me?"

My question stunned him. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sure that from the beginning you planned for all exigencies. So what happens to me?"

When he was silent I insisted: "I have a right to know everything that pertains to the experiment, and that includes my future."

"No reason why you shouldn't know." He paused and lit an already lit cigarette.

"You understand, of course, that from the beginning we had the highest hopes of permanence, and we still do... we definitely do-"

"I'm sure of that," I said.

"Of course, taking you on in this experiment was a serious responsibility. I don't
know how much you remember or how much you've pieced together about things in the beginning of the project, but we tried to make it clear to you that there was a
strong chance it might be only temporary"

"I had that written down in my progress reports, at the time," I agreed, "though I didn't understand at the time what you meant by it. But that's beside the point because I'm aware of it now."

"Well, we decided to risk it with you," he went on, "because we felt there
was very little chance of doing you any serious harm, and we were sure there was a great chance of doing you some good."

"You don't have to justify that."

"But you realize we had to get permission from someone in your immediate family. You were incompetent to agree to this yourself."

"I know all about that. You're talking about my sister, Norma. I read about
it in the papers. From what I remember of her, I imagine she'd have given you approval for my execution."

He raised his eyebrows, but let it pass. "Well, as we told her, in the event that the experiment failed, we couldn't send you back to the bakery or to that room where you came from."

"Why not?"

"For one thing, you might not be the same. Surgery and injections of hormones might have had effects not immediately evident. Experiences since the operation might have left their mark on you. I mean, possibly emotional disturbances to complicate the retardation; you couldn't possibly be the same kind of person-"

"That's great. As if one cross weren't enough to bear."

"And for another thing there's no way of knowing if you would go back to the same mental level. There might be regression to an even more primitive level of functioning."
was letting me have the worst of it getting the weight off his mind. "I might as well know everything," I said, "while I'm still in a position to have some say about it. What plans have you made for me?"

He shrugged. "The Foundation has arranged to send you to the Warren State Home and Training School."

"If you can take care of yourself on the outside, you

won't have to stay in Warren. The less severe cases are permitted to live off the grounds. But we had to make provision for you just in case."

He was right. There was nothing for me to complain about. They had thought of everything. Warren was the logical place-the deep freeze where I could be put away for the rest of my days.

"At least it's not the incinerator," I said.
"What?"
"Never mind. A private joke." Then I thought of something.

"Tell me, is it possible to visit Warren, I mean go through the place and look it over as a visitor?"

"Yes, I think they have people coming down all the time-regular tours through the home as a kind of public relations thing. But why?"

"Because I want to see. I've got to know what's going
to happen while I'm still enough in control to be able to do something about it. See if you can arrange it as soon as possible."

I could see he was upset about the idea of my visiting Warren. As if I were ordering my coffin to sit in before I died. But then, I can't blame him
because he doesn't realize that finding out who I really am-the meaning of my total existence involves knowing the possibilities of my future as well as my past, where I'm going as well as where I've been. Although we know the end of the maze holds death (and it is something I have not always known -- not long ago the adolescent in me thought death could happen only to other people),

I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being-one of many ways-and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.

That evening and for the next few days I immersed myself in psychology
texts: clinical, personality, psychometrics, learning, experimental
psychology, animal psychology, physiological psychology, behaviorist,
gestalt, analytical, functional, dynamic, organismic, and all the rest of the ancient and modern factions, schools, and systems of thought. The depressing thing is that so many of the ideas on which our psychologists base their

beliefs about human intelligence, memory, and learning are all wishful thinking.


PROGRESS REPORT 16

July 27 - Working around the clock. 

Though most of my writing time is spent on notes which I keep in a separate folder, from time to time I have to put down my moods and thoughts out of sheer habit.

The calculus of intelligence is a fascinating study. In a sense this is the problem I've been concerned with all my life. Here is the place for the application of all the knowledge I have acquired.

Time assumes another dimension now-work and absorption in the search for an answer. The world around me and my past seem far away and distorted, as if time and space were taffy being stretched and looped and twisted out of
shape. The only real things are the cages and the mice and the lab equipment here on the fourth floor of the main building.

There is no night or day. I've got to cram a lifetime of research into a few weeks. I know I should rest, but I can't until I know the truth about what is happening.

Alice is a great help to me now. She brings me sandwiches and coffee, but she makes no demands.

About my perception: everything is sharp and clear, each sensation heightened and illuminated so that reds and yellows and blues glow. Sleeping here has a strange effect. The odors of the laboratory animals, dogs, mon- keys, mice, spin me back into memories, and it is difficult to know whether
I am experiencing a new sensation or recalling the past. It is impossible to
tell what proportion is memory and what exists here and now-so that a strange compound is formed of memory and reality; past and present; response to stimuli stored in my brain centers, and response to stimuli in this room.

It's as if all the things I've learned have fused into a crystal universe spinning before me so that I can see all the facets of it reflected in gorgeous bursts of light... .

A monkey sitting in the center of his cage, staring at me out of sleepy
eyes, rubbing his cheeks with little old-man shriveled hands... chee... cheee... cheeeee... and bouncing off the cage wire, up to the swing overhead where the other monkey sits staring dumbly into space. Urinating, defecating, passing wind, staring at me and laughing... cheeee... cheeeee... cheeeee...

And bouncing around, leap, hop, up around and down, he swings and tries to grab the other monkey's tail, but the one on the bar keeps swishing it away, without fuss, out of his grasp. Nice monkey... pretty monkey ..
with big eyes and swishy tail. Can I feed him a peanut?... No, the man'll holler. That sign says do not feed the animals. That's a chimpanzee. Can I pet him? No. I want to pet the chip-a-zee. Never mind, come and look at the elephants.

Outside, crowds of bright sunshiny people are dressed in spring.

Algernon lies in his own dirt, unmoving, and the odors are stronger than ever before. And what about me?

July 28-

I went back to the lab to work with Algernon. He has moments out of his lethargy. Periodically, he will run a shifting maze, but when he fails and finds himself in a dead-end, he reacts violently. When I got down to the lab, I looked in. He was alert and came up to me as if he knew me. He was eager to work, and when I set him down through the trap door in the wire mesh of the maze, he moved swiftly along the pathways to the reward

box. Twice he ran the maze successfully. The third time, he got halfway through, paused at an intersection, and then with a twitching movement took the wrong turn. I could see what was going to happen, and I wanted to reach down and take him out before he ended up in a blind alley. But I restrained myself and watched.

When he found himself moving along the unfamiliar path, he slowed down, and his actions became erratic: start, pause, double back, turn around and then forward again, until finally he was in the cul-de-sac that informed him with a mild shock that he had made a mistake. At this point, instead of

turning back to find an alternate route, he began to move in circles, squeaking like a phonograph needle scratched across the grooves. He threw himself against the walls of the maze, again and again, leaping up, twisting over backwards and falling, and throwing himself again. Twice he caught his claws in the overhead wire mesh, screeching wildly, letting go, and trying

hopelessly again. Then he stopped and curled himself up into a small, tight ball.

When I picked him up, he made no attempt to uncurl, but remained in that state much like a catatonic stupor. When I moved his head or limbs, they stayed like wax. I put him back into his cage and watched him until the stupor wore off and he began to move around normally.

What eludes me is the reason for his regression-is it a special case? An isolated reaction? Or is there some general principle of failure basic to the whole procedure? I've got to work out the rule.

If I can find that out, and if it adds even one jot of information to
whatever else has been discovered about mental retardation and the possibility of helping others like myself, I will be satisfied. Whatever happens to me, I will have lived a thousand normal lives by what I might add to others not yet born.

That's enough.

July 31 -

I'm on the edge of it. I sense it. They all think I'm killing myself
at this pace, but what they don't understand is that I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night-in the moments before I pass off into sleep-ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem.

Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in
during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is

joy. And now that I've found it, how can I give it up? Life and work are the
most wonderful things a man can have. I am in love with what I am doing, because the answer to this problem is right here in my mind, and soon-very
soon-it will burst into consciousness. Let me solve this one problem. I pray
God it is the answer I want, but if not I will accept any answer at all and
try to be grateful for what I had.

August 11 -

Blind alley for the past two days. Nothing. I've taken a wrong turn somewhere, because I get answers to a lot of questions, but not to the most important question of all: How does Algernon's regression affect the basic hypothesis of the experiment?

Fortunately, I know enough about the processes of the mind not to let this
block worry me too much. Instead of panicking and giving up (or what's even worse, pushing hard for answers that won't come) I've got to take my mind off the problem for a while and let it stew. I've gone as far as I can on a
conscious level, and now it's up to those mysterious operations below the
level of awareness. It's one of those inexplicable things, how everything
I've learned and experienced is brought to bear on the problem. Pushing too hard will only make things freeze up. How many great problems have gone unsolved because men didn't know enough, or have enough faith in the creative process and in themselves, to let go for the whole mind to work at it?

"I've learned a lot in the past few months," I said. "Not only about Charlie Gordon, but about life and people, and I've discovered that nobody really cares about Charlie Gordon, whether he's a moron or a genius. So what difference does it make?"

"Oh," laughed Nemur. "You're feeling sorry for yourself. What did you
expect? This experiment was calculated to raise your intelligence, not to
make you popular. We had no control over what happened to your personality, and you've developed from a likeable, retarded young man into an arrogant, self-centered, antisocial bastard."

"The problem, dear professor, is that you wanted someone who could be made intelligent but still be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap
the honors you seek. The hitch is that I'm a person."

He was angry, and I could see he was torn between ending the fight and trying once more to beat me down. "You're being unfair, as usual. You know we've always treated you well-done everything we could for you."

"Everything but treat me as a human being. You've boasted time and again that I was nothing before the experiment, and I know why. Because if I was nothing, then you were responsible for creating me, and that makes you my lord and master. You resent the fact that I don't show my gratitude every hour of the day. Well, believe it or not, I am grateful. But what you did for

me-wonderful as it is-doesn't give you the right to treat me like an experimental animal. I'm an individual now, and so was Charlie before he
ever walked into that lab. You look shocked! Yes, suddenly we discover
that I was always a person-even before-and that challenges your belief that someone with an IQ of less than 100 doesn't deserve consideration. Professor Nemur, I think when you look at me your conscience bothers you."

"You've become cynical," said Nemur. "That's all this opportunity has meant to you. Your genius has destroyed your faith in the world and in your fellow men."

"That's not completely true," I said softly. "But I've learned that
intelligence alone doesn't mean a thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn."

"Don't misunderstand me," I said. "Intelligence is one of the greatest human

gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for
love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give
and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships,

can only lead to violence and pain.

"When I was retarded I had lots of friends. Now I have no one. Oh, I know lots of people. Lots and lots of people. But I don't have any real friends. Not like I used to have in the bakery. Not a friend in the world who means anything to me, and no one I mean anything to. " I discovered that my speech was becoming slurred, and there was a lightness in my head.

"That can't be right, can it?" I insisted. "I mean, what do you think? Do you think that's ...that's right?"

"Why y'all looking at me like that? What did I say wrong? Did I say something wrong? I din't mean to say anything that wasn't right."

"I always try to do the right things. My mother always taught me to be nice to people because she said that way you won't get into trouble and you'll always have lots of friends."

What has happened to me? Why am I so alone in the world?

4:30 A.M.-The solution came to me, just as I was dozing off. Illuminated!

Everything fits together, and I see what I should have known from the beginning. No more sleep. I've got to get back to the lab and test this against the results from the computer. This, finally, is the flaw in the experiment. I've found it.

Now what becomes of me?

August 26 - LETTER TO PROFESSOR NEMUR (COPY) Dear Professor Nemur:

Under separate cover I am sending you a copy of my report entitled: "The Algernon-Gordon Effect: A Study of Structure and Function of Increased Intelligence," which may be published if you see fit.

As you know, my experiments are completed. I have included in my report all of my formulas, as well as mathematical analyses of the data in the appendix.

Of course, these should be verified.

The results are clear. The more sensational aspects of my rapid climb cannot obscure the facts. The surgery and injection techniques developed by you and Dr Strauss must be viewed as having little or no practical applicability, at
the present time, to the increase of human intelligence.

Reviewing the data on Algernon: although he is still in his physical youth, he has regressed mentally. Motor activity impaired; general reduction of glandular functioning; accelerated loss of coordination, and strong indications of progressive amnesia.

As I show in my report, these and other physical and mental deterioration syndromes can be predicted with statistically significant results by the application of my new formula. Although the surgical stimulus to which we were both subjected resulted in an intensification and acceleration of all mental processes, the flaw, which I have taken the liberty of calling the "Algernon-Gordon Effect," is the logical extension of the entire intelligence speed-up. The hypothesis here proved may be described most simply in the following terms:

ARTIFICIALLY-INDUCED INTELLIGENCE DETERIORATES AT A RATE OF TIME DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE QUANTITY OF THE INCREASE.

As long as I am able to write, I will continue to put down my thoughts and ideas in these progress reports. It is one of my few solitary pleasures and is certainly necessary to the completion of this research. However, by all indications, my own mental deterioration will be quite rapid.

I have checked and rechecked my data a dozen times in hope of finding an error, but I am sorry to say the results must stand. Yet, I am grateful for
the little bit that I here add to the knowledge of the function of the human mind and of the laws governing the artificial increase of human intelligence.

The other night Dr Strauss was saying that an experimental failure, the disproving of a theory, was as important to the advancement of learning as a success would be. I know now that this is true. I am sorry, however, that my own contribution to the field must rest upon the ashes of the work of this staff,
and especially those who have done so much for me.

Yours truly,

Charles Gordon encl: report copy: Dr Strauss The Welberg Foundation


September 1 -

I must not panic. Soon there will be signs of emotional

instability and forgetfulness, the first symptoms of the burnout. Will I recognize these in myself? All I can do now is keep recording my mental state as objectively as possible, remembering that this psychological journal will
be the first of its kind, and possibly the last.

This morning Nemur had Burt take my report and the statistical data down to Hallston University to have some of the top men in the field verify my
results and the application of my formulas. All last week they had Burt going over my experiments and methodological charts. I shouldn't really be annoyed by their precautions. After all, I'm just a Charlie-come-lately, and it is

difficult for Nemur to accept the fact that my work might be beyond him. He had come to believe in the myth of his own authority, and after all I am an outsider.

I don't really care any more what he thinks, or what any of them think for that matter. There isn't time. The work is done, the data is in, and all that remains is to see whether I have accurately projected the curve on the Algernon figures as a prediction of what will happen to me.

Alice cried when I told her the news. Then she ran out. I've got to impress on her that there is no reason for her to feel guilty about this.


September 2 -
Nothing definite yet. I move in a silence of clear white
light. Everything around me is waiting. I dream of being alone on the top of a mountain, surveying the land around me, greens and yellows-and the sun directly above, pressing my shadow into a tight ball around my legs. As
the sun drops into the afternoon sky, the shadow undrapes itself
and stretches out toward the horizon, long and thin, and far behind me...

I want to say here again what I've said already to Dr Strauss. No one is in any way to blame for what has happened. This experiment was carefully prepared, extensively tested on animals, and statistically validated. When they decided to use me as the first human test, they were reasonably certain that there was no physical danger involved. There was no way to foresee the psychological pitfalls. I don't want anyone to suffer because of what happens to me.

The only question now is: How much can I hang on to?


September 15 -

Nemur says my results have been confirmed. It means that the flaw is central and brings the entire hypothesis into question. Someday there might be a way to overcome this problem, but that time is not yet. I have recommended that no further tests be made on human beings until these things are clarified by additional research on animals.

It is my own feeling that the most successful line of research will be that

taken by the men studying enzyme imbalances. As with so many other things, time is the key factor -- speed in discovering the deficiency, and speed in administering hormonal substitutes. I would like to help in that area of research, and in the search for radioisotopes that may be used in local cortical control, but I know now that I won't have the time.

September 17 - Becoming absent minded. Put things away on my desk or in the drawers of the lab tables, and when I can't find them I lose my temper and
flare up at everyone. First signs?

Algernon died two days ago. I found him at four thirty in the morning when
I came back to the lab after wandering around down at the waterfront-on his side, stretched out in the corner of his cage. As if he were running in his sleep.

Dissection shows that my predictions were right. Compared to the normal
brain, Algernon's had decreased in weight and there was a general smoothing out of the cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain fissures.

It's frightening to think that the same thing might be happening to me right now. Seeing it happen to Algernon makes it real. For the first time, I'm afraid of the future.

I put Algernon's body into a small metal container and took him home with me. I wasn't going to let them dump him into the incinerator. It's foolish and sentimental, but late last night I buried him in the back yard. I wept as I put a bunch of wild flowers on the grave.

 

PROGRESS REPORT 17

October 3 - Downhill. Thoughts of suicide to stop it all
now while I am still in control and aware of the world around me. But then I think of Charlie waiting at the window. His life is not
mine to throw away. I've just borrowed it for a while, and now I'm being asked to return it.

I must remember I'm the only person this ever happened to. As long as I can, I've got to keep putting down my thoughts and feelings. These progress reports are Charlie Gordon's contribution to mankind.

I have become edgy and irritable. Having fights with people in the building about playing the hi-fi set late at night. I've been doing that a lot since
I've stopped playing the piano. It isn't right to keep it going all hours,
but I do it to keep myself awake. I know I should sleep, but I begrudge every second of waking time. It's not just because of the nightmares; it's because I'm afraid of letting go.

I tell myself there'll be time enough to sleep later, when it's dark.

 


 

October 11 - When I came into my apartment this morning, I found Alice there,

asleep on the couch. Everything was cleaned up, and at first I thought I was
in the wrong apartment, but then I saw she hadn't touched the smashed records or the torn books or the sheet music in the corner of the room. The floor creaked and she woke up and looked at me.
"Hi," she laughed. "Some night owl."

"Not an owl. More of a dodo. A dumb dodo. How'd you get in here?"

"Through the fire escape. 

"I do mind... very much. I don't want anybody coming around feeling sorry for me."

She went to the mirror to comb her hair. "I'm not here because I feel sorry for you. It's because I feel sorry for me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It doesn't mean," she shrugged. "It just is-like a poem. I wanted to see you."

"What's wrong with the zoo?"

"Oh, come off it, Charlie. Don't fence with me. I waited long enough for you to come and get me. I decided to come to you."

Why?"

"Because there's still time. And I want to spend it with you."

"Is that a song?"

"Charlie, don't laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing. But I can't afford to spend my time with anyone-there's only enough left for myself."

"I can't believe you want to be completely alone." "I do."

"We had a little time together before we got out of touch. We had things to talk about, and things to do together. It didn't last very long but it was

something. Look, we've known this might happen. It was no secret. I didn't go away, Charlie, I've just been waiting. You're about at my level again, aren't you?"

I stormed around the apartment. "But that's crazy. There's nothing to look forward to. I don't dare let myself think ahead-only back. In a few months, weeks, days-who the hell knows?-I'll go back to Warren. You can't follow me there."

"No," she admitted, "and I probably won't even visit you there. Once you're
in Warren I'll do my best to forget you. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But until you go, there's no reason for either of us to be alone."

I leaned over and kissed her eyes.

Alice knows everything about me now, and accepts the fact that we can be together for only a short while. She has agreed to go away when I tell her to go. It's painful to think about that, but what we have, I suspect, is more
than most people find in a lifetime.

October 14 - I wake up in the morning and don't know where I am or what I'm doing here, and then I see her beside me and I remember. She senses when something is happening to me, and she moves quietly around the apartment, making breakfast, cleaning up the place, or going out and leaving me to myself, without any questions.

We went to a concert this evening, but I got bored and we left in the
middle. Can't seem to pay much attention any more. I went because I know I used to like Stravinsky but somehow I no longer have the patience for it.

The only bad thing about having Alice here with me is that now I feel I should fight this thing. I want to stop time, freeze myself at this level and never let go of her.


October 17 -

Why can't I remember? I've got to try to resist this slackness. Alice tells me I lie in bed for days and don't seem to
know who or where I am. Then it all comes back and I recognize her and remember what's happening. Fugues of amnesia. Symptoms of second childhood-what do they call it?-senility? I can watch it coming on.

All so cruelly logical, the result of speeding up all the processes of the
mind. I learned so much so fast, and now my mind is deteriorating rapidly. What if I won't let it happen? What if I fight it? Think of those people at Warren,
the empty smiles, the blank expressions, everyone laughing at them.

Little Charlie Gordon staring at me through the window-waiting. Please, not that again.

October 18 - I'm forgetting things I learned recently. It seems to be following

the classic pattern, the last things learned are first things forgotten. Or is that the pattern? Better look it up again.

Reread my paper on the Algernon-Gordon Effect and even though I know I wrote it, I keep feeling it was written by someone else. Most of it I don't even understand.

But why am I so irritable? Especially when Alice is so good to me? She keeps the place neat and clean, always putting my things away and washing dishes and scrubbing floors. I shouldn't have shouted at her the way I did this morning because it made her cry, and I didn't want that to happen. But she shouldn't have picked up the broken records and the music and the book and put them all neatly into a box. That made me furious. I don't want anyone to touch any of those things. I want to see them pile up. I want them to remind me of what I'm leaving behind. I kicked the box and scattered the stuff all over the floor and told her to leave them just where they were.

Foolish. No reason for it. I guess I got sore because I knew she thought it
was silly to keep those things, and she didn't tell me she thought it was
silly. She just pretended it was perfectly normal. She's humoring me. And
when I saw that box I remembered the boy at Warren and the lousy lamp he made and the way we were all humoring him, pretending he had done something wonderful when he hadn't.

That was what she was doing to me, and I couldn't stand it.

When she went to the bedroom and cried I felt bad about it and I told her it was all my fault. I don't deserve someone as good as her. Why can't I control myself just enough to keep on loving her? Just enough.

October 19 - Motor activity impaired. I keep tripping and dropping things. At first I didn't think it was me. I thought she was changing things around. The wastebasket was in my way, and so were the chairs, and I thought she had moved them.

Now I realize my coordination is bad. I have to move slowly to get things right. And it's increasingly difficult to type. Why do I keep blaming Alice? And why doesn't she argue? That irritates me even more because I see the pity in her face.

My only pleasure now is the TV set. I spend most of the day watching the
quiz programs, the old movies, the soap operas, and even the kiddie shows and cartoons. And then I can't bring myself to turn it off. Late at night there
are the old movies, the horror pictures, the late show, and the late-late
show, and even the little sermon before the channel signs off for the night,
and the "StarSpangled Banner" with the flag waving in the background, and

finally the channel test pattern that stares back at me through the little square window with its unclosing eye... .

Why am I always looking at life through a window?

And after it's all over I'm sick with myself because there is so little time left for me to read and write and think, and because I should know better than to drug my mind with this dishonest stuff that's aimed at the child in me. Especially me, because the child in me is reclaiming my mind.

I know all this, but when Alice tells me I shouldn't waste my time, I get angry and tell her to leave me alone.

I have a feeling I'm watching because it's important for me not to think,
not to remember about the bakery, and my mother and father, and Norma. I don't want to remember any more of the past.

I had a terrible shock today. Picked up a copy of an
article I had used in my research, Krueger's Uber Psychische Ganzheit, to see if it would help me understand the paper I wrote and what I had done in
it. First I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. Then I realized I could no longer read German. Tested myself in other languages. All gone.
 

October 21 -

Alice is gone. Let's see if I can remember. It started when she said we couldn't live like this with the torn books and papers and records all over the floor and the place in such a mess.

"Leave everything the way it is," I warned her. "Why do you want to live this way?"

"I want everything where I put it. I want to see it all out here. You don't know what it's like to have something happening inside you, that you can't see and can't control, and know it's all slipping through your fingers."

"You're right. I never said I could understand the things that were
happening to you. Not when you became too intelligent for me, and not now. But I'll tell you one thing. Before you had the operation, you weren't like
this. You didn't wallow in your own filth and self-pity, you didn't pollute
your own mind by sitting in front of the TV set all day and night, you didn't
snarl and snap at people. There was something about you that made us respect you-yes,, even as you were. You had something I had never seen in a retarded person before."

"I don't regret the experiment."

"Neither do I, but you've lost something you had before. You had a smile..." "An empty, stupid smile."
"No, a warm, real smile, because you wanted people to like you."
"And they played tricks on me, and laughed at me."

"Yes, but even though you didn't understand why they were laughing, you sensed that if they could laugh at you they would like you. And you wanted them to like you. You acted like a child and you even laughed at yourself along with them."

"I don't feel like laughing at myself right now, if you don't mind."

She was trying to keep from crying. I think I wanted to make her cry. "Maybe
that's why it was so important for me to learn. I thought it would make
people like me. I thought I would have friends. That's something to laugh at, isn't it?"

"There's more to it than just having a high IQ"

That made me angry. Probably because I didn't really understand what she was driving at. More and more these days she didn't come right out and say what she meant. She hinted at things. She talked around them and expected me to know what she was thinking. And I listened, pretending I understood but

inside I was afraid she would see that I missed the point completely." "I think it's time for you to leave."

Her face turned red. "Not yet, Charlie. It's not time yet. Don't send me away."

"You're making it harder for me. You keep pretending I can do things and understand things that are far beyond me now. You're pushing me. Just like my mother... "

"That's not true!"

"Everything you do says it. The way you pick up and clean up after me, the way you leave books around that you think will get me interested in reading again, the way you talk to me about the news to get me thinking. You say it doesn't matter, but everything you do shows how much it matters. Always the schoolteacher. I don't want to go to concerts or museums or foreign films or do anything that's going to make me struggle to think about life or about myself."

"Charlie-"

"Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here."

That made her cry. This afternoon she packed her bags and left. The apartment feels quiet and empty now.

October 25 -

Deterioration progressing. I've given up using the typewriter. Coordination is too bad. From now on I'll have to write out these reports in longhand.

I thought a lot about the things Alice said, and then it hit me that if I
kept on reading and learning new things, even while I was forgetting the old ones, I would be able to keep some of my intelligence. I was on a down escalator now. If I stood still I'd go all the way to the bottom, but if I
started to run up maybe I could at least stay in the same place. The important thing was to keep moving upward no matter what happened.

So I went to the library and got out a lot of books to read. I've been
reading a lot now. Most of the books are too hard for me, but I don't care. As long as I keep reading I'll learn new things and I won't forget how to read. That's the most important thing. If I keep reading, maybe I can hold my own.

Dr Strauss came around the day after Alice left, so I guess she told him
about me. He pretended all he wanted was the progress reports but I told him I would send them. I don't want him coming around here. I told him he doesn't have to be worried about me because when I think I won't be able to take care of myself any more I'll get on a train and go to Warren.

I told him I'd rather just go by myself when the time comes.

This morning the landlady, Mrs Mooney, came up with a bowl of hot chicken soup and some chicken. She said she just thought she would look in on me to see if I was doing all right. I told her I had lots of food to eat but she
left it anyway and it was good. She pretended she was doing it on her own but I'm not that stupid yet. Alice or Strauss must have told her to look in on me and make sure I was all right. Well, that's okay. She's a nice old lady with

an Irish accent and she likes to talk all about the people in the building. When she saw the mess on the floor inside my apartment she didn't say anything about it. I guess she's all right.


November 1 -
A week since I dared to write again. I don't know where the time

goes. Todays Sunday I know because I can see through my window the people going into the church across the street. I think I laid in bed all week but
I remember Mrs Mooney bringing me food a few times and asking if I was sick.

What am I going to do with myself? I cant just hang around here all alone and look out the window. Ive got to get hold of myself. I keep saying over and over that Ive got to do something but then I forget or maybe its just easier not to do what I say I'm going to do.

I still have some books from the library but a lot of them are too hard for me. I
read a lot of mystery stories now and books about kings and queens from old
times. I read a book about a man who thought he was a knight and went out on an
old horse with his friend. But no matter what he did he always ended up getting
beaten and hurt. Like when he thought the windmills were dragons. At first I
thought it was a silly book because if he wasnt crazy he could see that windmills werent dragons and there is no such thing as sorcerers and enchanted castles but then I rememberd that there was something else it was all supposed to mean - something the story didnt say but only hinted at. Like there was other meanings. But
I dont know what. That made me angry because I think I used to know. But I'm keeping up with my reading and learning new things every day and I know its going to help me.

I know I should have written some progress reports before this so they will know whats happening to me. But writing is harder. I have to look up even simple words in the dictionary now and it makes me angry with myself.


Nov 5 -

Mrs Mooney is very worried about me. She says

the way I lay around all day and dont do anything I remind her of her son before she threw him out of the
house. She said she dont like loafters. If I'm sick its one thing but if I'm
a loafter thats another thing and she has no use for me. I told her I think I'm sick.

I try to read a little bit every day mostly stories but sometimes I have to
read the same thing over and over again because I dont know what it means. And its hard to write. I know I should look up all the words in the dictionary but
I'm so tired all the time.

Then I got the idea that I would only use the easy words instead of the long hard ones. That saves time. Its getting chilly out but I still put flowers on Algernons grave. Mrs Mooney thinks I'm silly to put flowers on a mouses grave but I told her that Algernon was a special mouse.

Nov 9-

Sunday again. I dont have anything to do to keep me busy now because the TV is broke and I keep forgetting to get it fixed. I think I lost this
months check from the college. I dont remember.

I get awful headaches and asperin doesnt help much. Mrs Mooney believes now that I'm really sick and she feels very sory for me. She's a wonderful woman whenever someone is sick. Its getting so cold out now that Ive got to wear
two sweaters.

Nov 10-

Mrs Mooney called a strange doctor to see me. She was afraid I was going to die. I told the doctor I wasnt to sick and that I only forget

sometimes. He asked me did I have any friends or relatives and I said no I dont have any. I told him I had a friend called Algernon once but he was a mouse and we use to run races together. He looked at me kind of funny like he thot I was crazy.

He smiled when I told him I use to be a genius. He talked to me like I was
a baby and he winked at Mrs Mooney. I got mad because he was making fun of me and laughing and I chased him out and locked the door.

I think I know why I been haveing bad luck. Because lost my rabits foot and my horshoe. I got to get another rabits foot fast.

Nov 11 -

Dr Strauss came to the door today and Alice to but I didnt let them come in. I told them I didnt want anyone to see me. I want to be left alone.  Later Mrs Mooney came up with some food and she told me they paid the rent and left money for her to buy food and anything I need. I told her I dont

want to use there money any more. She said moneys money and someone has to

pay or I have to put you out. Then she said why dont I get some job instead of just hanging around.

I dont know any work but the job I use to do at the bakery. I dont want to
go back their because they all knew me when I was smart and maybe theyll laff at me. But I dont know what else to do to get money. And I want to pay for everything myself. I am strong and I can werk. If I cant take care of myself
I'll go to Warren. I wont take charety from anybody.

Nov 15 - I was looking at some of my old progress reports and its very strange
but I cant read what I wrote. I can make out some of the words but they dont
make sense. I think I wrote them but I dont remember so good.

Nov 16 -

Alice came to the door again but I said go away I dont want to see you. She cryed and I cryed to but I woudnt let her in because I didnt want her to laff at me. I told her I didnt like her any more and I didnt want to
be smart any more either. Thats not true but. I still love her and I still

want to be smart but I had to say that so she woud go away. Mrs Mooney told me Alice brout some more money to look after me and for the rent. I dont want that. I got to get a job.

Please... please... dont let me forget how to reed and rite...

Nov 18 -

Mr Donner was very nice when I came back and askd him for my old job at the bakery. Frist he was very suspicius but I told him what happened to me and then he looked very sad and put his hand on my shoulder and said Charlie you got guts.

Evrybody looked at me when I came downstairs and started working in the toilet sweeping it out like I use to do. I said to myself Charlie if they
make fun of you dont get sore because you remember their not so smart like you once thot they were. And besides they were once your frends and if they laffed at you that dont mean anything because they liked you to.

One of the new men who came to werk their after I went away his name is Meyer Klaus did a bad thing to me. He came up to me when I was loading the sacks of flower and he said hey Charlie I hear your a very smart fella-a real quiz kid. Say something inteligent. I felt bad because I could tell by the
way he said it he was making fun of me. So I kept on with my werk. But then he came over and grabed me by the arm real hard and shouted at me. When I talk to you boy you better listen to me. Or I coud brake your arm for you. He

twisted my arm so it hurt and I got scared he was going to brake it like he
said. And he was laffing and twisting it, and I didnt know what to do. I got
so afraid I felt like I was gonna cry but I didnt and then I had to go to the bathroom something awful. My stomack was all twisting inside like I was gonna bust open if I didnt go right away... because I couldnt hold it back.

I told him please let me go because I got to go to the toilet but he was
just laffing at me and I dint know what to do. So I started crying. Let me
go. Let me go. And then I made. It went in my pants and it smelled bad and I was crying. He let go of me then and made a sick face and he looked scared then. He said For gods sake I didnt mean anything Charlie.

But then Joe Carp came in and grabbed Klaus by the shirt and said leave him alone or I'll brake your neck. Charlie is a good guy and nobodys gonna start up with him without answering for it. I felt ashamed and
I ran to the toilet to clean myself and change my cloths.

When I got back Frank was there to and Joe was telling him about it and then Gimpy came in and they told him about it and he said theyd get rid of Klaus. They were gonna tell Mr Donner to fire him. I told them I dint think he should be fired and have to find another job because he had a wife and a kid. And besides he said he was sorry for what he did to me.

And I remember how sad I was when I had to get fired from the
bakery and go away. I said Klaus shoud get a second chance because now he wouldnt do anything bad to me anymore.

Later Gimpy came over limping on his bad foot and he said Charlie if anyone bothers you or trys to take advantage you call me or Joe or Frank and we will set him strait. We all want you to remember that you got frends here and dont you ever forget it. I said thanks Gimpy. That makes me feel good.

Its good to have frends...

Nov 21 -

I did a dumb thing today I forgot I wasnt in Miss Kinnians class at
the adult center any more like I use to be. I went in and sat down in my old seat in the back of the room and she lookd at me funny and she said Charlie where have you been. So I said hello Miss Kinnian Im redy for my lessen today only I lossed the book we was using.

She started to cry and run out of the room and everbody looked at me and I saw alot of them wasnt the same pepul who use to be in my class.

Then all of a suddin I remembered some things about the operashun and me getting smart and I said holy smoke I reely pulled a Charlie Gordon that
time. I went away before she came back to the room.

Thats why Im going away from here for good to the Warren Home school. I dont want to do nothing like that agen. I dont want Miss Kinnian to feel sorry for
me. I know evrybody feels sorry for me at the bakery and I dont want that
eather so Im going someplace where they are a lot of other pepul like me and nobody cares that Charlie Gordon was once a genus and now he cant even reed a book or rite good.

Im taking a cuple of books along and even if I cant reed them I'll practise
hard and mabye I'll even get a littel bit smarter then I was before the operashun without an operashun. I got a new rabits foot and a luky penny and even a littel bit of that majic powder left and mabye they will help me.

If you ever reed this Miss Kinnian dont be sorry for me. Im glad I got a
second chanse in life like you said to be smart because I lerned alot of
things that I never even new were in this werld and Im grateful I saw it all
even for a littel bit. And Im glad I found out all about my family and me. It
was like I never had a family til I remembird about them and saw them and now I know I had a family and I was a person just like evryone.

I dont no why Im dumb agen or what I did rong. Mabye its because I dint try hard enuf or just some body put the evel eye on me. But if I try and practis very hard mabye I'll get a littel smarter and no what all the words are. I remembir a littel bit how nice I had a feeling with the blue book that I red with the toren cover. And when I close my eyes I think about the man who tored the book and he looks like me only he looks different and be talks different but I dont think its me because its like I see him from the window.

Anyway thats why Im gone to keep trying to get smart so I can have that feeling agen. Its good to no things and be smart and I wish I new evrything in the hole world. I wish I coud be smart agen rite now. If I coud I woud sit down and reed all the time.

Anyway I bet Im the frist dumb persen in the world who found out some thing inportent for sience. I did somthing but I dont remembir what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me in Warren and all over the
world.

Goodby Miss Kinnian and dr Strauss and evrybody...

P.S. please tel prof Nemur not to be such a grouch when pepul laff at him and he woud have more frends. Its easy to have fiends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of fiends where I go.

P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flown on Algernons grave in the bak yard.

THE END