Anthem
we think that the Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of
this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who
will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to
all our brothers.
We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know
its nature, we have watched it and worked with it. We saw it
first two years ago. One night, we were cutting open the body of
a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking. It was dead, yet it
moved. Some power unknown to men was making it move. We could not
understand it. Then, after many tests, we found the answer. The
frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the
metal of our knife which had sent the strange power to the copper
through the brine of the frog’s body. We put a piece of copper
and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine, we touched a wire to
them, and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never
occurred before, a new miracle and a new power.
This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all
our studies. We worked with it, we tested it in more ways than we
can describe, and each step was as another miracle unveiling
before us. We came to know that we had found the greatest power
on earth. For it defies all the laws known to men. It makes the
needle move and turn on the compass which we stole from the Home
of the Scholars; but we had been taught, when still a child, that
the loadstone points to the north and that this is a law which
nothing can change; yet our new power defies all laws. We found
that it causes lightning, and never have men known what causes
lightning. In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod of iron by the
side of our hole, and we watched it from below. We have seen the
lightning strike it again and again. And now we know that metal
draws the power of the sky, and that metal can be made to give it
forth.
We have built strange things with this discovery of ours. We used
for it the copper wires which we found here under the ground. We
have walked the length of our tunnel, with a candle lighting the
way. We could go no farther than half a mile, for earth and rock
had fallen at both ends. But we gathered all the things we found
and we brought them to our work place. We found strange boxes
with bars of metal inside, with many cords and strands and coils
of metal. We found wires that led to strange little globes of
glass on the walls; they contained threads of metal thinner than
a spider’s web.
These things help us in our work. We do not understand them, but
we think that the men of the Unmentionable Times had known our
power of the sky, and these things had some relation to it. We do
not know, but we shall learn. We cannot stop now, even though it
frightens us that we are alone in our knowledge.
No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars
who are elected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do.
We have fought against saying it, but now it is said. We do not
care. We forget all men, all laws and all things save our metals
and our wires. So much is still to be learned! So long a road
lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone!
PART FOUR
Many days passed before we could speak to the Golden One again.
But then came the day when the sky turned white, as if the sun
had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay
still without breath, and the dust of the road was white in the
glow. So the women of the field were weary, and they tarried over
their work, and they were far from the road when we came. But the
Golden One stood alone at the hedge, waiting. We stopped and we
saw that their eyes, so hard and scornful to the world, were
looking at us as if they would obey any word we might speak.
And we said:
“We have given you a name in our thoughts, Liberty 5-3000.”
“What is our name?” they asked.
“The Golden One.”
“Nor do we call you Equality 7-2521 when we think of you.”
“What name have you given us?” They looked straight into our eyes
and they held their head high and they answered:
“The Unconquered.”
For a long time we could not speak. Then we said:
“Such thoughts as these are forbidden, Golden One.”
“But you think such thoughts as these and you wish us to think
them.”
We looked into their eyes and we could not lie.
“Yes,” we whispered, and they smiled, and then we said: “Our
dearest one, do not obey us.”
They stepped back, and their eyes were wide and still.
“Speak these words again,” they whispered.
“Which words?” we asked. But they did not answer, and we knew it.
“Our dearest one,” we whispered.
Never have men said this to women.
The head of the Golden One bowed slowly, and they stood still
before us, their arms at their sides, the palms of their hands
turned to us, as if their body were delivered in submission to
our eyes. And we could not speak.
Then they raised their head, and they spoke simply and gently, as
if they wished us to forget some anxiety of their own.
“The day is hot,” they said, “and you have worked for many hours
and you must be weary.”
“No,” we answered.
“It is cooler in the fields,” they said, “and there is water to
drink. Are you thirsty?”
“Yes,” we answered, “but we cannot cross the hedge.”
“We shall bring the water to you,” they said.
Then they knelt by the moat, they gathered water in their two
hands, they rose and they held the water out to our lips.
We do not know if we drank that water. We only knew suddenly that
their hands were empty, but we were still holding our lips to
their hands, and that they knew it, but did not move.
We raised our head and stepped back. For we did not understand
what had made us do this, and we were afraid to understand it.
And the Golden One stepped back, and stood looking upon their
hands in wonder. Then the Golden One moved away, even though no
others were coming, and they moved, stepping back, as if they
could not turn from us, their arms bent before them, as if they
could not lower their hands.
PART FIVE
We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of
the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only.
We know not what we are saying. Our head is reeling. We look upon
the light which we have made. We shall be forgiven for anything
we say tonight....
Tonight, after more days and trials than we can count, we
finished building a strange thing, from the remains of the
Unmentionable Times, a box of glass, devised to give forth the
power of the sky of greater strength than we had ever achieved
before. And when we put our wires to this box, when we closed the
current—the wire glowed! It came to life, it turned red, and a
circle of light lay on the stone before us.
We stood, and we held our head in our hands. We could not
conceive of that which we had created. We had touched no flint,
made no fire. Yet here was light, light that came from nowhere,
light from the heart of metal.
We blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us. There was nothing
left around us, nothing save night and a thin thread of flame in
it, as a crack in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands to
the wire, and we saw our fingers in the red glow. We could not
see our body nor feel it, and in that moment nothing existed save
our two hands over a wire glowing in a black abyss.
Then we thought of the meaning of that which lay before us. We
can light our tunnel, and the City, and all the Cities of the
world with nothing save metal and wires. We can give our brothers
a new light, cleaner and brighter than any they have ever known.
The power of the sky can be made to do men’s bidding. There are
no limits to its secrets and its might, and it can be made to
grant us anything if we but choose to ask.
Then we knew what we must do. Our discovery is too great for us
to waste our time in sweeping the streets. We must not keep our
secret to ourselves, nor buried under the ground. We must bring
it into the sight of all men. We need all our time, we need the
work rooms of the Home of the Scholars, we want the help of our
brother Scholars and their wisdom joined to ours. There is so
much work ahead for all of us, for all the Scholars of the world.
In a month, the World Council of Scholars is to meet in our City.
It is a great Council, to which the wisest of all lands are
elected, and it meets once a year in the different Cities of the
earth. We shall go to this Council and we shall lay before them,
as our gift, this glass box with the power of the sky. We shall
confess everything to them. They will see, understand and
forgive. For our gift is greater than our transgression. They
will explain it to the Council of Vocations, and we shall be
assigned to the Home of the Scholars. This has never been done
before, but neither has a gift such as ours ever been offered to
men.
We must wait. We must guard our tunnel as we had never guarded it
before. For should any men save the Scholars learn of our secret,
they would not understand it, nor would they believe us. They
would see nothing, save our crime of working alone, and they
would destroy us and our light. We care not about our body, but
our light is...
Yes, we do care. For the first time do we care about our body.
For this wire is as a part of our body, as a vein torn from us,
glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or
of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these
two?
We stretch out our arms. For the first time do we know how strong
our arms are. And a strange thought comes to us: we wonder, for
the first time in our life, what we look like. Men never see
their own faces and never ask their brothers about it, for it is
evil to have concern for their own faces or bodies. But tonight,
for a reason we cannot fathom, we wish it were possible to us to
know the likeness of our own person.
PART SIX
We have not written for thirty days. For thirty days we have not
been here, in our tunnel. We had been caught. It happened on that
night when we wrote last. We forgot, that night, to watch the
sand in the glass which tells us when three hours have passed and
it is time to return to the City Theatre. When we remembered it,
the sand had run out.
We hastened to the Theatre. But the big tent stood grey and
silent against the sky. The streets of the City lay before us,
dark and empty. If we went back to hide in our tunnel, we would
be found and our light found with us. So we walked to the Home of
the Street Sweepers.
When the Council of the Home questioned us, we looked upon the
faces of the Council, but there was no curiosity in those faces,