Just because you can doesn't mean you should. It was Andersen's odd talk that marked the beginning of it for us. Of course, that wasn't the real beginning. I suppose you might say it really started when Becquerel first puzzled over his fogged photographic plates. But to us, Andersen's premonitions were the start. We called him the "Melancholy Dane." But that was just a joke, though his tall, cadaverous appearance fitted it. He wasn't really a gloomy sort, and was a first-class nuclear chemist.

That was why he surprised us with what he said at dinner that night. "I have a feeling that what we are doing here is against the cosmic scheme," he said in his slow English.