The world below
herself liable to the penalties provided.”
“But such knowledge--if she had it--did not imply consent?”
“Not necessarily, but, as I have said, the individual must be
subordinate to the state, or no civilised community could continue.”
“It is not self-evident that every civilised community should continue.
But your contention is clearly not that she consented, but that such
consent is not necessary. By whom were you appointed a judge, and under
what compulsion, if any?”
“I belong to the class from which judges are chosen, after certain tests
have been passed.”
“Would there have been any penalty, had you declined to act in that
capacity?”
“No; but I had no reason to do so. It is regarded as a position of
honour among us.”
“Do you regard all the laws of your country as just and good?”
“They are not perfect, but they are well adapted for the needs of those
for whom they are made, and they are being improved continually.”
“They cannot be very good, or continual improvement would be impossible.
What course do you, or your fellow-judges, take when confronted with a
bad law?”
“It is not our duty to consider whether a law be good or bad, but to
administer it. The responsibility of the law is not on us, but on the
whole nation. Ours is to administer it accurately and impartially.”
“The responsibility for a law cannot be upon a whole nation, unless it
be agreed unanimously. It is upon those who make or support it. This
responsibility must rest in the largest degree upon those who directly
enforce it.”
The rapid interchange paused for a moment, and thinking that my
companion was about to formulate her accusation, I interposed a
suggestion. The swift duel of thought which I have translated into
written words as best I can, had taken a few minutes only, but the heat
already seemed greater than when we entered the building. Through the
open bars of the pens we could see the towering pinnacle of fire, where
the seven buildings were now burning together. A wind moved occasionally
in our direction, and the high flames swayed toward us.
I said, “If we are not speedy, we shall all burn together. I understand
that you wish to set out their guilt as it appears to you, now that you
have heard their explanations, to which the horny-beaked orator will
make reply, and then I am to judge the issue. Will it not save time if
we interrogate the other two before these speeches are made?”
She agreed at once, but added, “I think you should question them. I am
conscious that their world is less strange to you than to myself, and
you might discover circumstances in their favour which I should fail to
do.”
I assented, and we walked down to where the two whose complaint had
originated the trouble were flapping with impatience to pour out their
wrongs.
I think it was well that I had taken on the interrogation. Here was no
keen argument, cool when at its deadliest, but a confused clamour from
two vulgarities that exposed themselves without shame, or appreciation
of their effect upon the minds that heard them.
I cannot translate the mental invectives, vituperations, recriminations,
and contradictions they poured upon us, but the facts came out with
unmistakable clearness.
Their tale was this. Through the vague impression of a complex and
highly-organised civilisation, there stood out clearly a group of
dwellings, inhabited by members of a trading class, of one of which
these two were occupants, and (apparently) owners.
As was customary, they did not use the ground floor, on account of a
plague of white slugs which rose from the ground at certain seasons and
crawled into the houses. The higher floors were gained through circular
openings in the ceilings, to which they flew from perches in the rooms
below. This left much of their domestic economy unexplained, but I did
not pursue a subject that was only indirectly material to the inquiry. I
gained an impression that the higher floors were in some way immune from
these slugs, which were a serious danger or annoyance, and of which no
method had been discovered by which to keep the ground floor entirely
free. For this reason it was usual to allow an industrial worker of the
poorer kind to occupy it in return for certain menial services. These
sub-tenants were not allowed to fly into the upper stories under any
circumstances.
Until a few weeks earlier, the present couple had lived prosperously.
Trade was good, and they had only been detected in cheating once in
every moon as the law permitted. They had been fortunate enough to breed
a daughter with a bright yellow blotch on either shoulder, which they
had been able to sell for a large sum.
The ground floor had been occupied by a female who had been employed in
some industrial process by which the wings were liable to become
damaged, and had lost the use of hers, so that the ring on which she
perched at night had to be hanged within a few feet of the ground. A
beneficent law provided that those who suffered in this way could take
certain pickings from the main roads, by the sale of which life could be
maintained. She had, however, complained of a growing blindness, which
prevented her from snatching her due share of this bounty, and when the
time of the spring meal approached had caused annoyance by waylaying her
employers as they went in and out of the house, and petitioning that
they would provide food for her. They declined a request so
unreasonable, and had advised her kindly of the methods of suicide best
adapted to her condition, and when they saw that their advice was not
taken, they even went the length of recommending her to a medical
practitioner who would destroy her without a fee, in return for an
opportunity of investigating the diseases from which she suffered.
Unfortunately, they did not kill her themselves, which they could have
done for a slight penalty, for their laws are, in this instance, more
just than ours, the penalty of murder being in proportion to the
expectation of the victim’s life, and its estimated value to him. Then
they might have committed the murder jointly, and halved the penalty
between them, for in this also their law is more equitable than ours,
and if two or three people unite to commit a crime they can each be
punished for one-half or one-third of the crime, or for their fair
proportion only.
But the time passed without decisive action being taken, till the week
of the summer meal approached, and the wretch, being blinder than
before, and weak from six months’ fasting, had failed to gain the right
to a meal for herself, and had again resorted to begging them to supply
her need.
On the eve of the feast they had collected their food in an upper room,
and had gone out to barter a ring-eared monkey, very quaintly tattooed,
for the wing-powder which they would need after the second day’s eating,
and on coming back they had found her sitting on the edge of the
aperture above the room she occupied, afraid to flutter down, owing to
the condition of her wings. They found a savoury mess of pomegranates
and pig’s liver, (such as is eaten on the first day before sustaining
food is taken), had been entirely consumed, and two of the food-balls
also. She would give no explanation of how she climbed into the room,
and it was supposed that she must have had an accomplice, who should
have helped her down also, but who had become alarmed, and fled. She
admitted that she had eaten the food, but claimed that she was obliged
to do so, and that there was an abundance remaining for their own
necessities.
The two judges before whom she was taken had treated her with great
consideration. They had sentenced her to eight strokes, which she would
almost certainly have survived, in view of the food that she had
swallowed, and they had ordered that the sentence should not be executed
for three days, during which she should be placed in a cell designed for
such cases, where she could release herself from her troubles without
further difficulty.
The cell had a deep well, in which she could have drowned herself very
easily had she had sufficient sense to do so. A kindly regulation had
provided that the sides of the well, above the water, should be deep and
smooth, as there had been distressing instances of prisoners who had
changed their minds when half-drowned and had clambered out, so that all
their misery was repeated. There were also weights which she could have
tied to her feet, had she wished to do so.
Instead, however, of following these suggestions, she had contumaciously
appealed against the sentence she had received, which had delayed its
execution, and entailed a two-days’ journey into the Upper City for her
accusers. The food she had taken appeared to have renewed her youth, or
rather her energy, (for she was not old), so that she had attempted to
escape her confinement, and had almost succeeded; and when rebuked by
the Superior Judges for not availing herself of the provision for her
comfort which the cell provided, she had actually uncrossed her legs,
and shaken the damaged wings derisively, asking if she were likely to
commit suicide with three months’ food in her body.
I endeavoured to put such questions as might have elicited any
extenuating circumstance which had bearing on the main incident, such as
a past kindness, or a past ingratitude, but I obtained nothing that was
helpful.
Their replies were inconsequent, and their minds worked round
continually to self-reproaches that they had not killed her themselves,
and to a choking indignation at the thought that it was the stolen food
in her body which had supplied her with strength to contest the issue.
We went back to where the Chief Justice crouched unmoving, but with eyes
that had watched the scene with sombre keenness.
My companion commenced immediately--“I have thought of all that you
said, and of much that your thoughts implied, though it was not stated.
The conditions of life which you showed me are beneath anything I had
imagined previously, though I have heard strange and dark things from
the friend beside me. It may be that your own state is no worse than
that to which he is native, but that it appears different to him because
he is of a different kind. For when I heard how that half-blinded
creature, whom you had condemned to wretchedness, and would have
persuaded to destruction, shook derisive wings at your inability to
subdue her, it came to me that even in these dark and dreadful worlds
there may be fair ways to tread for such spirits as are sufficient in
themselves to find them. It seemed to me for a moment that our spirits
are the only reality, and all the rest illusion. Yet, if that be so,
round spirits of what kind can so dark a dream have gathered as that
which has brought you here? It is a thought which I cannot grasp in a
moment, but to which I may give much time when occasion allows it.
Meanwhile, my inclination is changed. I still think that you should die,
and my Leader, who is wiser than I, was of the same mind, as were the
Dwellers who condemned you. But I am less sure than I was, and I will
say nothing more to urge it. You have chosen another judge, and I am
content for him to decide it.”
When she ceased he looked at her in silence for a few seconds. I think
he was regretting again the choice of judge which the majority had
forced upon him. Then he accepted the position, and seeing that I was
waiting to consider the defence which he would set up, he opened his
mind toward me.
“You are of a world different from ours,” he began, “but sufficiently
like it to understand how necessary are the laws which regulate the
possession of property, and that any law without penalty would be no
deterrent. You know also that the function of a judge is different from