Herland
easy to show what we wanted to do, and they each proudly produced a sort
of strong clasp-knife from their pockets.
“Yes,” we said eagerly, “that’s it! Please--” We had learned quite a
bit of their language, you see. And we just begged for those knives, but
they would not give them to us. If we came a step too near they backed
off, standing light and eager for flight.
“It’s no sort of use,” I said. “Come on--let’s get a sharp stone or
something--we must get this thing off.”
So we hunted about and found what edged fragments we could, and hacked
away, but it was like trying to cut sailcloth with a clamshell.
Terry hacked and dug, but said to us under his breath. “Boys, we’re in
pretty good condition--let’s make a life and death dash and get hold of
those girls--we’ve got to.”
They had drawn rather nearer to watch our efforts, and we did take
them rather by surprise; also, as Terry said, our recent training had
strengthened us in wind and limb, and for a few desperate moments those
girls were scared and we almost triumphant.
But just as we stretched out our hands, the distance between us widened;
they had got their pace apparently, and then, though we ran at our
utmost speed, and much farther than I thought wise, they kept just out
of reach all the time.
We stopped breathless, at last, at my repeated admonitions.
“This is stark foolishness,” I urged. “They are doing it on
purpose--come back or you’ll be sorry.”
We went back, much slower than we came, and in truth we were sorry.
As we reached our swaddled machine, and sought again to tear loose its
covering, there rose up from all around the sturdy forms, the quiet
determined faces we knew so well.
“Oh Lord!” groaned Terry. “The Colonels! It’s all up--they’re forty to
one.”
It was no use to fight. These women evidently relied on numbers, not so
much as a drilled force but as a multitude actuated by a common impulse.
They showed no sign of fear, and since we had no weapons whatever and
there were at least a hundred of them, standing ten deep about us, we
gave in as gracefully as we might.
Of course we looked for punishment--a closer imprisonment, solitary
confinement maybe--but nothing of the kind happened. They treated us as
truants only, and as if they quite understood our truancy.
Back we went, not under an anesthetic this time but skimming along in
electric motors enough like ours to be quite recognizable, each of us
in a separate vehicle with one able-bodied lady on either side and three
facing him.
They were all pleasant enough, and talked to us as much as was possible
with our limited powers. And though Terry was keenly mortified, and at
first we all rather dreaded harsh treatment, I for one soon began to
feel a sort of pleasant confidence and to enjoy the trip.
Here were my five familiar companions, all good-natured as could be,
seeming to have no worse feeling than a mild triumph as of winning some
simple game; and even that they politely suppressed.
This was a good opportunity to see the country, too, and the more I saw
of it, the better I liked it. We went too swiftly for close observation,
but I could appreciate perfect roads, as dustless as a swept floor; the
shade of endless lines of trees; the ribbon of flowers that unrolled
beneath them; and the rich comfortable country that stretched off and
away, full of varied charm.
We rolled through many villages and towns, and I soon saw that the
parklike beauty of our first-seen city was no exception. Our swift
high-sweeping view from the ‘plane had been most attractive, but lacked
detail; and in that first day of struggle and capture, we noticed
little. But now we were swept along at an easy rate of some thirty miles
an hour and covered quite a good deal of ground.
We stopped for lunch in quite a sizable town, and here, rolling slowly
through the streets, we saw more of the population. They had come out
to look at us everywhere we had passed, but here were more; and when we
went in to eat, in a big garden place with little shaded tables among
the trees and flowers, many eyes were upon us. And everywhere, open
country, village, or city--only women. Old women and young women and a
great majority who seemed neither young nor old, but just women; young
girls, also, though these, and the children, seeming to be in groups by
themselves generally, were less in evidence. We caught many glimpses of
girls and children in what seemed to be schools or in playgrounds, and
so far as we could judge there were no boys. We all looked, carefully.
Everyone gazed at us politely, kindly, and with eager interest. No one
was impertinent. We could catch quite a bit of the talk now, and all
they said seemed pleasant enough.
Well--before nightfall we were all safely back in our big room. The
damage we had done was quite ignored; the beds as smooth and comfortable
as before, new clothing and towels supplied. The only thing those women
did was to illuminate the gardens at night, and to set an extra watch.
But they called us to account next day. Our three tutors, who had not
joined in the recapturing expedition, had been quite busy in preparing
for us, and now made explanation.
They knew well we would make for our machine, and also that there was no
other way of getting down--alive. So our flight had troubled no one; all
they did was to call the inhabitants to keep an eye on our movements all
along the edge of the forest between the two points. It appeared that
many of those nights we had been seen, by careful ladies sitting snugly
in big trees by the riverbed, or up among the rocks.
Terry looked immensely disgusted, but it struck me as extremely funny.
Here we had been risking our lives, hiding and prowling like outlaws,
living on nuts and fruit, getting wet and cold at night, and dry and hot
by day, and all the while these estimable women had just been waiting
for us to come out.
Now they began to explain, carefully using such words as we could
understand. It appeared that we were considered as guests of the
country--sort of public wards. Our first violence had made it necessary
to keep us safeguarded for a while, but as soon as we learned the
language--and would agree to do no harm--they would show us all about
the land.
Jeff was eager to reassure them. Of course he did not tell on Terry, but
he made it clear that he was ashamed of himself, and that he would now
conform. As to the language--we all fell upon it with redoubled energy.
They brought us books, in greater numbers, and I began to study them
seriously.
“Pretty punk literature,” Terry burst forth one day, when we were in
the privacy of our own room. “Of course one expects to begin on
child-stories, but I would like something more interesting now.”
“Can’t expect stirring romance and wild adventure without men, can you?”
I asked. Nothing irritated Terry more than to have us assume that there
were no men; but there were no signs of them in the books they gave us,
or the pictures.
“Shut up!” he growled. “What infernal nonsense you talk! I’m going to
ask ’em outright--we know enough now.”
In truth we had been using our best efforts to master the language, and
were able to read fluently and to discuss what we read with considerable
ease.
That afternoon we were all sitting together on the roof--we three and
the tutors gathered about a table, no guards about. We had been made to
understand some time earlier that if we would agree to do no violence
they would withdraw their constant attendance, and we promised most
willingly.
So there we sat, at ease; all in similar dress; our hair, by now, as
long as theirs, only our beards to distinguish us. We did not want those
beards, but had so far been unable to induce them to give us any cutting
instruments.
“Ladies,” Terry began, out of a clear sky, as it were, “are there no men
in this country?”
“Men?” Somel answered. “Like you?”
“Yes, men,” Terry indicated his beard, and threw back his broad
shoulders. “Men, real men.”
“No,” she answered quietly. “There are no men in this country. There has
not been a man among us for two thousand years.”
Her look was clear and truthful and she did not advance this astonishing
statement as if it was astonishing, but quite as a matter of fact.
“But--the people--the children,” he protested, not believing her in the
least, but not wishing to say so.
“Oh yes,” she smiled. “I do not wonder you are puzzled. We are
mothers--all of us--but there are no fathers. We thought you would ask
about that long ago--why have you not?” Her look was as frankly kind as
always, her tone quite simple.
Terry explained that we had not felt sufficiently used to the language,
making rather a mess of it, I thought, but Jeff was franker.
“Will you excuse us all,” he said, “if we admit that we find it hard to
believe? There is no such--possibility--in the rest of the world.”
“Have you no kind of life where it is possible?” asked Zava.
“Why, yes--some low forms, of course.”
“How low--or how high, rather?”
“Well--there are some rather high forms of insect life in which it
occurs. Parthenogenesis, we call it--that means virgin birth.”
She could not follow him.
“_Birth_, we know, of course; but what is _virgin?_”
Terry looked uncomfortable, but Jeff met the question quite calmly.
“Among mating animals, the term _virgin_ is applied to the female who
has not mated,” he answered.
“Oh, I see. And does it apply to the male also? Or is there a different
term for him?”
He passed this over rather hurriedly, saying that the same term would
apply, but was seldom used.
“No?” she said. “But one cannot mate without the other surely. Is not
each then--virgin--before mating? And, tell me, have you any forms of
life in which there is birth from a father only?”
“I know of none,” he answered, and I inquired seriously.
“You ask us to believe that for two thousand years there have been only
women here, and only girl babies born?”
“Exactly,” answered Somel, nodding gravely. “Of course we know that
among other animals it is not so, that there are fathers as well as
mothers; and we see that you are fathers, that you come from a people
who are of both kinds. We have been waiting, you see, for you to be able
to speak freely with us, and teach us about your country and the rest of
the world. You know so much, you see, and we know only our own land.”
In the course of our previous studies we had been at some pains to tell
them about the big world outside, to draw sketches, maps, to make a
globe, even, out of a spherical fruit, and show the size and relation of
the countries, and to tell of the numbers of their people. All this had
been scant and in outline, but they quite understood.
I find I succeed very poorly in conveying the impression I would like to
of these women. So far from being ignorant, they were deeply wise--that
we realized more and more; and for clear reasoning, for real brain scope
and power they were A No. 1, but there were a lot of things they did not
know.
They had the evenest tempers, the most perfect patience and good
nature--one of the things most impressive about them all was the absence
of irritability. So far we had only this group to study, but afterward I
found it a common trait.
We had gradually come to feel that we were in the hands of friends, and
very capable ones at that--but we couldn’t form any opinion yet of the
general level of these women.
“We want you to teach us all you can,” Somel went on, her firm shapely
hands clasped on the table before her, her clear quiet eyes meeting
ours frankly. “And we want to teach you what we have that is novel and
useful. You can well imagine that it is a wonderful event to us, to have
men among us--after two thousand years. And we want to know about your