Anthem
cannot be destroyed by the whim of one.”
“This would wreck the Plans of the World Council,” said Unanimity
2-9913, “and without the Plans of the World Council the sun
cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all
the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number
needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of
torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working
in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon.”
“And if this should lighten the toil of men,” said Similarity
5-0306, “then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist
save in toiling for other men.”
Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box.
“This thing,” they said, “must be destroyed.”
And all the others cried as one:
“It must be destroyed!”
Then we leapt to the table.
We seized our box, we shoved them aside, and we ran to the
window. We turned and we looked at them for the last time, and a
rage, such as it is not fit for humans to know, choked our voice
in our throat.
“You fools!” we cried. “You fools! You thrice-damned fools!”
We swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a
ringing rain of glass.
We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we
ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a
torrent without shape. And the road seemed not to be flat before
us, but as if it were leaping up to meet us, and we waited for
the earth to rise and strike us in the face. But we ran. We knew
not where we were going. We knew only that we must run, run to
the end of the world, to the end of our days.
Then we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that
we had stopped. Trees taller than we had ever seen before stood
over us in great silence. Then we knew. We were in the Uncharted
Forest. We had not thought of coming here, but our legs had
carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted
Forest against our will.
Our glass box lay beside us. We crawled to it, we fell upon it,
our face in our arms, and we lay still.
We lay thus for a long time. Then we rose, we took our box and
walked on into the forest.
It mattered not where we went. We knew that men would not follow
us, for they never enter the Uncharted Forest. We had nothing to
fear from them. The forest disposes of its own victims. This gave
us no fear either. Only we wished to be away, away from the City
and from the air that touches upon the air of the City. So we
walked on, our box in our arms, our heart empty.
We are doomed. Whatever days are left to us, we shall spend them
alone. And we have heard of the corruption to be found in
solitude. We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our
brother men, and there is no road back for us, and no redemption.
We know these things, but we do not care. We care for nothing on
earth. We are tired.
Only the glass box in our arms is like a living heart that gives
us strength. We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this
box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake.
It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their
truth. Why wonder about this? We have not many days to live. We
are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great,
silent trees. There is not a thing behind us to regret.
Then a blow of pain struck us, our first and our only. We thought
of the Golden One. We thought of the Golden One whom we shall
never see again. Then the pain passed. It is best. We are one of
the Damned. It is best if the Golden One forget our name and the
body which bore that name.
PART EIGHT
It has been a day of wonder, this, our first day in the forest.
We awoke when a ray of sunlight fell across our face. We wanted
to leap to our feet, as we have had to leap every morning of our
life, but we remembered suddenly that no bell had rung and that
there was no bell to ring anywhere. We lay on our back, we threw
our arms out, and we looked up at the sky. The leaves had edges
of silver that trembled and rippled like a river of green and
fire flowing high above us.
We did not wish to move. We thought suddenly that we could lie
thus as long as we wished, and we laughed aloud at the thought.
We could also rise, or run, or leap, or fall down again. We were
thinking that these were thoughts without sense, but before we
knew it our body had risen in one leap. Our arms stretched out of
their own will, and our body whirled and whirled, till it raised
a wind to rustle through the leaves of the bushes. Then our hands
seized a branch and swung us high into a tree, with no aim save
the wonder of learning the strength of our body. The branch
snapped under us and we fell upon the moss that was soft as a
cushion. Then our body, losing all sense, rolled over and over on
the moss, dry leaves in our tunic, in our hair, in our face. And
we heard suddenly that we were laughing, laughing aloud, laughing
as if there were no power left in us save laughter.
Then we took our glass box, and we went on into the forest. We
went on, cutting through the branches, and it was as if we were
swimming through a sea of leaves, with the bushes as waves rising
and falling and rising around us, and flinging their green sprays
high to the treetops. The trees parted before us, calling us
forward. The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on, without
thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our
body.
We stopped when we felt hunger. We saw birds in the tree
branches, and flying from under our footsteps. We picked a stone
and we sent it as an arrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made
a fire, we cooked the bird, and we ate it, and no meal had ever
tasted better to us. And we thought suddenly that there was a
great satisfaction to be found in the food which we need and
obtain by our own hand. And we wished to be hungry again and
soon, that we might know again this strange new pride in eating.
Then we walked on. And we came to a stream which lay as a streak
of glass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no water
but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down,
upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom. We knelt by the stream
and we bent down to drink. And then we stopped. For, upon the
blue of the sky below us, we saw our own face for the first time.
We sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body
were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers,
for we felt not pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like
the bodies of our brothers, for our limbs were straight and thin
and hard and strong. And we thought that we could trust this
being who looked upon us from the stream, and that we had nothing
to fear with this being.
We walked on till the sun had set. When the shadows gathered
among the trees, we stopped in a hollow between the roots, where
we shall sleep tonight. And suddenly, for the first time this
day, we remembered that we are the Damned. We remembered it, and
we laughed.
We are writing this on the paper we had hidden in our tunic
together with the written pages we had brought for the World
Council of Scholars, but never given to them. We have much to
speak of to ourselves, and we hope we shall find the words for it
in the days to come. Now, we cannot speak, for we cannot
understand.
PART NINE
We have not written for many days. We did not wish to speak. For
we needed no words to remember that which has happened to us.
It was on our second day in the forest that we heard steps behind
us. We hid in the bushes, and we waited. The steps came closer.
And then we saw the fold of a white tunic among the trees, and a
gleam of gold.
We leapt forward, we ran to them, and we stood looking upon the
Golden One.
They saw us, and their hands closed into fists, and the fists
pulled their arms down, as if they wished their arms to hold
them, while their body swayed. And they could not speak.
We dared not come too close to them. We asked, and our voice
trembled:
“How did you come to be here, Golden One?”
But they whispered only:
“We have found you....”
“How did you come to be in the forest?” we asked.
They raised their head, and there was a great pride in their
voice; they answered:
“We have followed you.”
Then we could not speak, and they said:
“We heard that you had gone to the Uncharted Forest, for the
whole City is speaking of it. So on the night of the day when we
heard it, we ran away from the Home of the Peasants. We found the
marks of your feet across the plain where no men walk. So we
followed them, and we went into the forest, and we followed the
path where the branches were broken by your body.”
Their white tunic was torn, and the branches had cut the skin of
their arms, but they spoke as if they had never taken notice of
it, nor of weariness, nor of fear.
“We have followed you,” they said, “and we shall follow you
wherever you go. If danger threatens you, we shall face it also.
If it be death, we shall die with you. You are damned, and we
wish to share your damnation.”
They looked upon us, and their voice was low, but there was
bitterness and triumph in their voice.
“Your eyes are as a flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor
fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are soft and
humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe. You walk, but
our brothers crawl. We wish to be damned with you, rather than
blessed with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do
not send us away from you.”
Then they knelt, and bowed their golden head before us.
We had never thought of that which we did. We bent to raise the
Golden One to their feet, but when we touched them, it was as if
madness had stricken us. We seized their body and we pressed our
lips to theirs. The Golden One breathed once, and their breath
was a moan, and then their arms closed around us.
We stood together for a long time. And we were frightened that we
had lived for twenty-one years and had never known what joy is
possible to men.
Then we said:
“Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger
in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their
good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are
together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your
hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange,
unknown world, but our own.”
Then we walked on into the forest, their hand in ours.
And that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms
is neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the
race of men.