Anthem
the sparks of sun on their lips. And we said:
“You are beautiful, Liberty 5-3000.”
Their face did not move and they did not avert their eyes. Only
their eyes grew wider, and there was triumph in their eyes, and
it was not triumph over us, but over things we could not guess.
Then they asked:
“What is your name?”
“Equality 7-2521,” we answered.
“You are not one of our brothers, Equality 7-2521, for we do not
wish you to be.”
We cannot say what they meant, for there are no words for their
meaning, but we know it without words and we knew it then.
“No,” we answered, “nor are you one of our sisters.”
“If you see us among scores of women, will you look upon us?”
“We shall look upon you, Liberty 5-3000, if we see you among all
the women of the earth.”
Then they asked:
“Are Street Sweepers sent to different parts of the City or do
they always work in the same places?”
“They always work in the same places,” we answered, “and no one
will take this road away from us.”
“Your eyes,” they said, “are not like the eyes of any among men.”
And suddenly, without cause for the thought which came to us, we
felt cold, cold to our stomach.
“How old are you?” we asked.
They understood our thought, for they lowered their eyes for the
first time.
“Seventeen,” they whispered.
And we sighed, as if a burden had been taken from us, for we had
been thinking without reason of the Palace of Mating. And we
thought that we would not let the Golden One be sent to the
Palace. How to prevent it, how to bar the will of the Councils,
we knew not, but we knew suddenly that we would. Only we do not
know why such thought came to us, for these ugly matters bear no
relation to us and the Golden One. What relation can they bear?
Still, without reason, as we stood there by the hedge, we felt
our lips drawn tight with hatred, a sudden hatred for all our
brother men. And the Golden One saw it and smiled slowly, and
there was in their smile the first sadness we had seen in them.
We think that in the wisdom of women the Golden One had
understood more than we can understand.
Then three of the sisters in the field appeared, coming toward
the road, so the Golden One walked away from us. They took the
bag of seeds, and they threw the seeds into the furrows of earth
as they walked away. But the seeds flew wildly, for the hand of
the Golden One was trembling.
Yet as we walked back to the Home of the Street Sweepers, we felt
that we wanted to sing, without reason. So we were reprimanded
tonight, in the dining hall, for without knowing it we had begun
to sing aloud some tune we had never heard. But it is not proper
to sing without reason, save at the Social Meetings.
“We are singing because we are happy,” we answered the one of the
Home Council who reprimanded us.
“Indeed you are happy,” they answered. “How else can men be when
they live for their brothers?”
And now, sitting here in our tunnel, we wonder about these words.
It is forbidden, not to be happy. For, as it has been explained
to us, men are free and the earth belongs to them; and all things
on earth belong to all men; and the will of all men together is
good for all; and so all men must be happy.
Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments
for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder. The heads of
our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our brothers are dull, and
never do they look one another in the eyes. The shoulders of our
brothers are hunched, and their muscles are drawn, as if their
bodies were shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight. And a
word steals into our mind, as we look upon our brothers, and that
word is fear.
There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and in
the air of the streets. Fear walks through the City, fear without
name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak.
We feel it also, when we are in the Home of the Street Sweepers.
But here, in our tunnel, we feel it no longer. The air is pure
under the ground. There is no odor of men. And these three hours
give us strength for our hours above the ground.
Our body is betraying us, for the Council of the Home looks with
suspicion upon us. It is not good to feel too much joy nor to be
glad that our body lives. For we matter not and it must not
matter to us whether we live or die, which is to be as our
brothers will it. But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living.
If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue.
Yet our brothers are not like us. All is not well with our
brothers. There are Fraternity 2-5503, a quiet boy with wise,
kind eyes, who cry suddenly, without reason, in the midst of day
or night, and their body shakes with sobs they cannot explain.
There are Solidarity 9-6347, who are a bright youth, without fear
in the day; but they scream in their sleep, and they scream:
“Help us! Help us! Help us!” into the night, in a voice which
chills our bones, but the Doctors cannot cure Solidarity 9-6347.
And as we all undress at night, in the dim light of the candles,
our brothers are silent, for they dare not speak the thoughts of
their minds. For all must agree with all, and they cannot know if
their thoughts are the thoughts of all, and so they fear to
speak. And they are glad when the candles are blown for the
night. But we, Equality 7-2521, look through the window upon the
sky, and there is peace in the sky, and cleanliness, and dignity.
And beyond the City there lies the plain, and beyond the plain,
black upon the black sky, there lies the Uncharted Forest.
We do not wish to look upon the Uncharted Forest. We do not wish
to think of it. But ever do our eyes return to that black patch
upon the sky. Men never enter the Uncharted Forest, for there is
no power to explore it and no path to lead among its ancient
trees which stand as guards of fearful secrets. It is whispered
that once or twice in a hundred years, one among the men of the
City escape alone and run to the Uncharted Forest, without call
or reason. These men do not return. They perish from hunger and
from the claws of the wild beasts which roam the Forest. But our
Councils say that this is only a legend. We have heard that there
are many Uncharted Forests over the land, among the Cities. And
it is whispered that they have grown over the ruins of many
cities of the Unmentionable Times. The trees have swallowed the
ruins, and the bones under the ruins, and all the things which
perished. And as we look upon the Uncharted Forest far in the
night, we think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times. And we
wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the
world. We have heard the legends of the great fighting, in which
many men fought on one side and only a few on the other. These
few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered. Then great fires
raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones and all the
things made by the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is
called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where
all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all
the words of the Evil Ones. Great mountains of flame stood in the
squares of the Cities for three months. Then came the Great
Rebirth.
The words of the Evil Ones... The words of the Unmentionable
Times... What are the words which we have lost?
May the Council have mercy upon us! We had no wish to write such
a question, and we knew not what we were doing till we had
written it. We shall not ask this question and we shall not think
it. We shall not call death upon our head.
And yet... And yet... There is some word, one single word which
is not in the language of men, but which had been. And this is
the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But
sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men
find that word. They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or
cut into the fragments of ancient stones. But when they speak it
they are put to death. There is no crime punished by death in
this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word.
We have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the
City. And it was a sight which has stayed with us through the
years, and it haunts us, and follows us, and it gives us no rest.
We were a child then, ten years old. And we stood in the great
square with all the children and all the men of the City, sent to
behold the burning. They brought the Transgressor out into the
square and they led them to the pyre. They had torn out the
tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer.
The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and
eyes blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did
not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces
which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, theirs was
the calmest and the happiest face.
As the chains were wound over their body at the stake, and a
flame set to the pyre, the Transgressor looked upon the City.
There was a thin thread of blood running from the corner of their
mouth, but their lips were smiling. And a monstrous thought came
to us then, which has never left us. We had heard of Saints.
There are the Saints of Labor, and the Saints of the Councils,
and the Saints of the Great Rebirth. But we had never seen a
Saint nor what the likeness of a Saint should be. And we thought
then, standing in the square, that the likeness of a Saint was
the face we saw before us in the flames, the face of the
Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word.
As the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours,
else we would not be living today. Perhaps it had only seemed to
us. But it seemed to us that the eyes of the Transgressor had
chosen us from the crowd and were looking straight upon us. There
was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their
body. There was only joy in them, and pride, a pride holier than
is fit for human pride to be. And it seemed as if these eyes were
trying to tell us something through the flames, to send into our
eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as if these eyes were
begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and
from the earth. But the flames rose and we could not guess the
word....
What—even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the
Pyre—what is the Unspeakable Word?
PART THREE
We, Equality 7-2521, have discovered a new power of nature. And
we have discovered it alone, and we alone are to know it.
It is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council
of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and
therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist. But