With These Hands — Context and Discussion

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In Category - Machines Invention

Authors: Kornbluth, C. M. (Cyril M.), 1923-1958 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2016 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction; Short stories; Artists -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 10,633

Reading time 47 min

Text sections 2

With These Hands — Context and Discussion can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 10,633 words, 47 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 14.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Science fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #51531

In a future where stereopantographs replace handcrafted art, sculptor Roald Halvorsen struggles with hunger, rejection, and the obsolescence of his craft. C. M. Kornbluth's story examines the tension between artistic integrity and technological efficiency through precise, tactile details and a protagonist whose physical deterioration mirrors his profession's decline.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg51531

Read the Text

There was something wrong with the prelate's manner.

"I've brought the designs for the Stations, Padre," he said, opening the portfolio on the desk.

"Bad news, Roald," said the monsignor. "I know how you've been looking forward to the commission--"

"Somebody else get it?" asked the artist faintly, leaning against the desk. "I thought his eminence definitely decided I had the--"

"It's not that," said the monsignor. "But the Sacred Congregation of Rites this week made a pronouncement on images of devotion. Stereopantograph is to be licit within a diocese at the discretion of the bishop. And his eminence--"

"S.P.G.--slimy imitations," protested Halvorsen. "Real as a plastic eye. No texture. No guts. _You_ know that, Padre!" he said accusingly.

"I'm sorry, Roald," said the monsignor. "Your work is better than we'll get from a stereopantograph--to my eyes, at least. But there are other considerations."

"Money!" spat the artist.

"Yes, money," the prelate admitted. "His eminence wants to see the St. Xavier U. building program through before he dies. Is that a mortal sin? And there are our schools, our charities, our Venus mission. S.P.G. will mean a considerable saving on procurement and maintenance of devotional images. Even if I could, I would not disagree with his eminence on adopting it as a matter of diocesan policy."

The prelate's eyes fell on the detailed drawings of the Stations of the Cross and lingered.

"Your St. Veronica," he said abstractedly. "Very fine. It suggests one of Caravaggio's care-worn saints to me. I would have liked to see her in the bronze."

"So would I," said Halvorsen hoarsely. "Keep the drawings, Padre." He started for the door.

The artist walked past the secretary blindly and out of the Chancery into Fifth Avenue's spring sunlight. He hoped Monsignor Reedy was enjoying the drawings and was ashamed of himself and sorry for Halvorsen. And he was glad he didn't have to carry the heavy portfolio any more. Everything seemed so heavy lately--chisels, hammer, wooden palette. Maybe the padre would send him something and pretend it was for expenses or an advance, as he had in the past.

Halvorsen's feet carried him up the Avenue. No, there wouldn't be any advances any more. The last steady trickle of income had just been dried up, by an announcement in _Osservatore Romano_. Religious conservatism had carried the church as far as it would go in its ancient role of art patron.

When all Europe was writing on the wonderful new vellum, the church stuck to good old papyrus. When all Europe was writing on the wonderful new paper, the church stuck to good old vellum. When all architects and municipal monument committees and portrait bust clients were patronizing the stereopantograph, the church stuck to good old expensive sculpture. But not any more.

He was passing an S.P.G. salon now, where one of his Tuesday night pupils worked: one of the few men in the classes. Mostly they consisted of lazy, moody, irritable girls. Halvorsen, surprised at himself, entered the salon, walking between asthenic semi-nude stereos executed in transparent plastic that made the skin of his neck and shoulders prickle with gooseflesh.

_Slime!_ he thought. _How can they--_

"May I help--oh, hello, Roald. What brings you here?"

He knew suddenly what had brought him there. "Could you make a little advance on next month's tuition, Lewis? I'm strapped." He took a nervous look around the chamber of horrors, avoiding the man's condescending face.

"I guess so, Roald. Would ten dollars be any help? That'll carry us through to the 25th, right?"

"Fine, right, sure," he said, while he was being unwillingly towed around the place.

"I know you don't think much of S.P.G., but it's quiet now, so this is a good chance to see how we work. I don't say it's Art with a capital A, but you've got to admit it's _an_ art, something people like at a price they can afford to pay. Here's where we sit them. Then you run out the feelers to the reference points on the face. You know what they are?"

He heard himself say dryly: "I know what they are. The Egyptian sculptors used them when they carved statues of the pharaohs."

"Yes? I never knew that. There's nothing new under the Sun, is there? But _this_ is the heart of the S.P.G." The youngster proudly swung open the door of an electronic device in the wall of the portrait booth. Tubes winked sullenly at Halvorsen.

Continue Reading →

The story opens with sculptor Roald Halvorsen, dizzy from hunger, waiting in a Chancery office. He has brought designs for the Stations of the Cross, but Monsignor Reedy informs him that the Church has approved stereopantographs—mechanical reproductions—for devotional images. Halvorsen protests, calling them "slimy imitations" with "no texture. No guts." The monsignor admits the artist's work is better but cites financial pressures: the diocese wants to fund a building program, schools, charities, and a Venus mission. Halvorsen leaves his drawings behind and stumbles out into Fifth Avenue's spring sunlight, noting how heavy his tools have become—chisels, hammer, palette.

Hunger and the Artist's Body

Halvorsen's physical state is a constant presence. He is "a little dizzy with hunger" in the opening scene, and later reflects that everything feels heavy—chisels, hammer, palette. The story uses his body to register the cost of his commitment. When he curls his left hand to hide a missing fingertip, the detail is not explained immediately; it is a scar that speaks to years of labor and accident. The engineer Malone later remarks that "accidents are a sign of inadequate mastery of material and equipment," a line that cuts both ways: it dismisses Halvorsen's craft but also reveals the engineer's own rigid worldview. The artist's body is the site where the conflict between handwork and machine efficiency is made tangible.

The Carpenter's Bitter Bargain

Halvorsen visits Mr. Krehbeil, an elderly carpenter who can no longer see well enough to file a saw. Krehbeil drives a hard bargain: crating stock in exchange for setting his saws. The old man is bitter, railing against "foolish machine-buildings" and his own son, who works a "foolish concrete machine." Yet it is that son who supports him by mail. Krehbeil's resentment is a mirror of Halvorsen's own situation—both are craftsmen made obsolete, but Krehbeil's response is corrosive. Halvorsen repents his own bitterness, offering "a quick prayer that his own failure to conform didn't make him as much of a nuisance." The scene grounds the story's central conflict in a specific, everyday transaction.

The Farce of Sympathy

When Lucy visits Halvorsen's studio, bringing food and money from Austin, the artist recognizes a pattern: "the farce was beginning again." He knows from books, experience, and old conversations that some artists rely on such encounters—lonesome, discontented women seeing them as "a combination of romantic rebel and lost pup." But Halvorsen dreads it. The story undercuts any easy romanticism about the starving artist by showing his self-awareness and weariness. He does not exploit the situation; he simply endures it. The passage is notable for its unsentimental tone: the narrator notes that "there was nothing novel about the comedy," refusing to grant Halvorsen's suffering a heroic gloss.

Kornbluth's story is built from small, concrete details—a missing fingertip, a badly filed saw, a portfolio left behind. The catalog subject "Artists -- Fiction" is accurate, but the excerpts show that the story is less about artistic inspiration than about the physical and social costs of refusing to adapt. Readers should attend to how the narrative uses objects and gestures to convey the pressure on Halvorsen's craft, and note that the excerpts do not reveal whether the artist finds a way forward or succumbs.

I remember With These Hands—how Roald’s aching fingers, those tools of his trade, felt every rejection like a small death. That same quiet ache for craft lives in The Human Element — Edition Insights, where the physical texture of making things still matters, even when machines hum louder. Two books, same lonely warmth in the palm. I shelve them together, sometimes, just to let them talk.