ANTHEM



      by Ayn Rand





        CONTENTS



         PART ONE



         PART TWO



         PART THREE



         PART FOUR



         PART FIVE



         PART SIX



         PART SEVEN



         PART EIGHT



         PART NINE



         PART TEN



         PART ELEVEN



         PART TWELVE









      PART ONE



      It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others

      think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It

      is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears

      but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression

      blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The

      laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations

      bid them so. May we be forgiven!



      But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater

      crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment

      awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has

      come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for

      it.



      It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air.

      Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are

      alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws

      say that none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for

      this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we

      have broken many laws. And now there is nothing here save our one

      body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the

      ground, and on the wall before us the shadow of our one head.



      The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads

      without sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle

      from the larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be

      sentenced to ten years in the Palace of Corrective Detention if

      it be discovered. But this matters not. It matters only that the

      light is precious and we should not waste it to write when we

      need it for that work which is our crime. Nothing matters save

      the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work. Still, we must

      also write, for—may the Council have mercy upon us!—we wish to

      speak for once to no ears but our own.



      Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron

      bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names

      upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and

      this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet

      tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and

      frowned and said:



      “There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has

      grown beyond the bodies of your brothers.” But we cannot change

      our bones nor our body.



      We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts

      which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may

      not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us

      and no power to resist it. This is our wonder and our secret

      fear, that we know and do not resist.



      We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be

      alike. Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there

      are words cut in the marble, which we repeat to ourselves

      whenever we are tempted:



  “WE ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE.

  THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT _WE_,

  ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER.”



      We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not.



      These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the

      grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which

      come from more years than men could count. And these words are

      the truth, for they are written on the Palace of the World

      Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has

      it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and farther back than that

      no memory can reach.



      But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth,

      else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective

      Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the

      evenings, in the Home of the Useless. They whisper many strange

      things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those

      Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which moved without

      horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But those

      times were evil. And those times passed away, when men saw the

      Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is

      no will save the will of all men together.



      All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we

      alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our

      brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see that it has

      ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step to our

      last, supreme transgression, our crime of crimes hidden here

      under the ground.



      We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were

      five years old, together with all the children of the City who

      had been born in the same year. The sleeping halls there were

      white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. We

      were just like all our brothers then, save for the one

      transgression: we fought with our brothers. There are few

      offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and

      for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and

      of all the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar

      most often.



      When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the

      Students, where there are ten wards, for our ten years of

      learning. Men must learn till they reach their fifteenth year.

      Then they go to work. In the Home of the Students we arose when

      the big bell rang in the tower and we went to our beds when it

      rang again. Before we removed our garments, we stood in the great

      sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said all

      together with the three Teachers at the head:



      “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are

      we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers

      who are the State. Amen.”



      Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare

      of all things save one hundred beds.



      We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of

      the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us.

      It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be

      born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be

      different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to

      them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked

      upon us.



      So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons,

      but we always remembered. We tried not to understand what the

      Teachers taught, but we always understood it before the Teachers

      had spoken. We looked upon Union 5-3992, who were a pale boy with

      only half a brain, and we tried to say and do as they did, that

      we might be like them, like Union 5-3992, but somehow the

      Teachers knew that we were not. And we were lashed more often

      than all the other children.



      The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the

      Councils, and the Councils are the voice of all justice, for they

      are the voice of all men. And if sometimes, in the secret

      darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our

      fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt. We

      had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to the words of our

      Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all:



      “Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when

      you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the

      Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of

      Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your

      brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little

      minds. And if you are not needed by your brother man, there is no

      reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies.”



      We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse

      broke our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were

      guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred

      some work and some lessons to the others. We did not listen well

      to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great

      Rebirth. But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know.

      We wished to know about all the things which make the earth

      around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade

      it.



      We think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water

      and in the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has

      said that there are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars

      knows all things. And we learned much from our Teachers. We

      learned that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around

      it, which causes the day and the night. We learned the names of

      all the winds which blow over the seas and push the sails of our

      great ships. We learned how to bleed men to cure them of all

      ailments.



      We loved the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the

      secret hour, when we awoke in the night and there were no

      brothers around us, but only their shapes in the beds and their

      snores, we closed our eyes, and we held our lips shut, and we

      stopped our breath, that no shudder might let our brothers see or

      hear or guess, and we thought that we wished to be sent to the

      Home of the Scholars when our time would come.



      All the great modern inventions come from the Home of the

      Scholars, such as the newest one, which was found only a hundred

      years ago, of how to make candles from wax and string; also, how

      to make glass, which is put in our windows to protect us from the

      rain. To find these things, the Scholars must study the earth and

      learn from the rivers, from the sands, from the winds and the

      rocks. And if we went to the Home of the Scholars, we could learn

      from these also. We could ask questions of these, for they do not

      forbid questions.



      And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us

      seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It

      whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours,

      and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them.

      We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We

      must know that we may know.



      So we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars. We wished it

      so much that our hands trembled under the blankets in the night,

      and we bit our arm to stop that other pain which we could not

      endure. It was evil and we dared not face our brothers in the

      morning. For men may wish nothing for themselves. And we were

      punished when the Council of Vocations came to give us our life

      Mandates which tell those who reach their fifteenth year what

      their work is to be for the rest of their days.



      The Council of Vocations came on the first day of spring, and

      they sat in the great hall. And we who were fifteen and all the

      Teachers came into the great hall. And the Council of Vocations

      sat on a high dais, and they had but two words to speak to each

      of the Students. They called the Students’ names, and when the

      Students stepped before them, one after another, the Council

      said: “Carpenter” or “Doctor” or “Cook” or “Leader.” Then each

      Student raised their right arm and said: “The will of our

      brothers be done.”



      Now if the Council has said “Carpenter” or “Cook,” the Students

      so assigned go to work and they do not study any further. But if

      the Council has said “Leader,” then those Students go into the

      Home of the Leaders, which is the greatest house in the City, for

      it has three stories. And there they study for many years, so

      that they may become candidates and be elected to the City

      Council and the State Council and the World Council—by a free and

      general vote of all men. But we wished not to be a Leader, even

      though it is a great honor. We wished to be a Scholar.



      So we awaited our turn in the great hall and then we heard the

      Council of Vocations call our name: “Equality 7-2521.” We walked

      to the dais, and our legs did not tremble, and we looked up at

      the Council. There were five members of the Council, three of the

      male gender and two of the female. Their hair was white and their

      faces were cracked as the clay of a dry river bed. They were old.

      They seemed older than the marble of the Temple of the World

      Council. They sat before us and they did not move. And we saw no

      breath to stir the folds of their white togas. But we knew that

      they were alive, for a finger of the hand of the oldest rose,

      pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only thing which

      moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said:

      “Street Sweeper.”



      We felt the cords of our neck grow tight as our head rose higher

      to look upon the faces of the Council, and we were happy. We knew

      we had been guilty, but now we had a way to atone for it. We

      would accept our Life Mandate, and we would work for our

      brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin

      against them, which they did not know, but we knew. So we were

      happy, and proud of ourselves and of our victory over ourselves.

      We raised our right arm and we spoke, and our voice was the

      clearest, the steadiest voice in the hall that day, and we said:



      “The will of our brothers be done.”



      And we looked straight into the eyes of the Council, but their

      eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.



      So we went into the Home of the Street Sweepers. It is a grey

      house on a narrow street. There is a sundial in its courtyard, by

      which the Council of the Home can tell the hours of the day and

      when to ring the bell. When the bell rings, we all arise from our

      beds. The sky is green and cold in our windows to the east. The

      shadow on the sundial marks off a half-hour while we dress and

      eat our breakfast in the dining hall, where there are five long

      tables with twenty clay plates and twenty clay cups on each

      table. Then we go to work in the streets of the City, with our

      brooms and our rakes. In five hours, when the sun is high, we

      return to the Home and we eat our midday meal, for which one-half

      hour is allowed. Then we go to work again. In five hours, the

      shadows are blue on the pavements, and the sky is blue with a

      deep brightness which is not bright. We come back to have our

      dinner, which lasts one hour. Then the bell rings and we walk in

      a straight column to one of the City Halls, for the Social

      Meeting. Other columns of men arrive from the Homes of the

      different Trades. The candles are lit, and the Councils of the

      different Homes stand in a pulpit, and they speak to us of our

      duties and of our brother men. Then visiting Leaders mount the

      pulpit and they read to us the speeches which were made in the

      City Council that day, for the City Council represents all men

      and all men must know. Then we sing hymns, the Hymn of

      Brotherhood, and the Hymn of Equality, and the Hymn of the

      Collective Spirit. The sky is a soggy purple when we return to

      the Home. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight column to

      the City Theatre for three hours of Social Recreation. There a

      play is shown upon the stage, with two great choruses from the

      Home of the Actors, which speak and answer all together, in two

      great voices. The plays are about toil and how good it is. Then

      we walk back to the Home in a straight column. The sky is like a

      black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst

      through. The moths beat against the street lanterns. We go to our

      beds and we sleep, till the bell rings again. The sleeping halls

      are white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.



      Thus have we lived each day of four years, until two springs ago

      when our crime happened. Thus must all men live until they are

      forty. At forty, they are worn out. At forty, they are sent to

      the Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones live. The Old Ones do

      not work, for the State takes care of them. They sit in the sun

      in summer and they sit by the fire in winter. They do not speak

      often, for they are weary. The Old Ones know that they are soon

      to die. When a miracle happens and some live to be forty-five,

      they are the Ancient Ones, and the children stare at them when

      passing by the Home of the Useless. Such is to be our life, as

      that of all our brothers and of the brothers who came before us.



      Such would have been our life, had we not committed our crime

      which changed all things for us. And it was our curse which drove

      us to our crime. We had been a good Street Sweeper and like all

      our brother Street Sweepers, save for our cursed wish to know. We

      looked too long at the stars at night, and at the trees and the

      earth. And when we cleaned the yard of the Home of the Scholars,

      we gathered the glass vials, the pieces of metal, the dried bones

      which they had discarded. We wished to keep these things and to

      study them, but we had no place to hide them. So we carried them

      to the City Cesspool. And then we made the discovery.



      It was on a day of the spring before last. We Street Sweepers

      work in brigades of three, and we were with Union 5-3992, they of

      the half-brain, and with International 4-8818. Now Union 5-3992

      are a sickly lad and sometimes they are stricken with

      convulsions, when their mouth froths and their eyes turn white.

      But International 4-8818 are different. They are a tall, strong

      youth and their eyes are like fireflies, for there is laughter in

      their eyes. We cannot look upon International 4-8818 and not

      smile in answer. For this they were not liked in the Home of the

      Students, as it is not proper to smile without reason. And also

      they were not liked because they took pieces of coal and they

      drew pictures upon the walls, and they were pictures which made

      men laugh. But it is only our brothers in the Home of the Artists

      who are permitted to draw pictures, so International 4-8818 were

      sent to the Home of the Street Sweepers, like ourselves.



      International 4-8818 and we are friends. This is an evil thing to

      say, for it is a transgression, the great Transgression of

      Preference, to love any among men better than the others, since

      we must love all men and all men are our friends. So

      International 4-8818 and we have never spoken of it. But we know.

      We know, when we look into each other’s eyes. And when we look

      thus without words, we both know other things also, strange

      things for which there are no words, and these things frighten

      us.



      So on that day of the spring before last, Union 5-3992 were

      stricken with convulsions on the edge of the City, near the City

      Theatre. We left them to lie in the shade of the Theatre tent and

      we went with International 4-8818 to finish our work. We came

      together to the great ravine behind the Theatre. It is empty save

      for trees and weeds. Beyond the ravine there is a plain, and

      beyond the plain there lies the Uncharted Forest, about which men

      must not think.



      We were gathering the papers and the rags which the wind had

      blown from the Theatre, when we saw an iron bar among the weeds.

      It was old and rusted by many rains. We pulled with all our

      strength, but we could not move it. So we called International

      4-8818, and together we scraped the earth around the bar. Of a

      sudden the earth fell in before us, and we saw an old iron grill

      over a black hole.



      International 4-8818 stepped back. But we pulled at the grill and

      it gave way. And then we saw iron rings as steps leading down a

      shaft into a darkness without bottom.



      “We shall go down,” we said to International 4-8818.



      “It is forbidden,” they answered.



      We said: “The Council does not know of this hole, so it cannot be

      forbidden.”



      And they answered: “Since the Council does not know of this hole,

      there can be no law permitting to enter it. And everything which

      is not permitted by law is forbidden.”



      But we said: “We shall go, none the less.”



      They were frightened, but they stood by and watched us go.



      We hung on the iron rings with our hands and our feet. We could

      see nothing below us. And above us the hole open upon the sky

      grew smaller and smaller, till it came to be the size of a

      button. But still we went down. Then our foot touched the ground.

      We rubbed our eyes, for we could not see. Then our eyes became

      used to the darkness, but we could not believe what we saw.



      No men known to us could have built this place, nor the men known

      to our brothers who lived before us, and yet it was built by men.

      It was a great tunnel. Its walls were hard and smooth to the

      touch; it felt like stone, but it was not stone. On the ground

      there were long thin tracks of iron, but it was not iron; it felt

      smooth and cold as glass. We knelt, and we crawled forward, our

      hand groping along the iron line to see where it would lead. But

      there was an unbroken night ahead. Only the iron tracks glowed

      through it, straight and white, calling us to follow. But we

      could not follow, for we were losing the puddle of light behind

      us. So we turned and we crawled back, our hand on the iron line.

      And our heart beat in our fingertips, without reason. And then we

      knew.



      We knew suddenly that this place was left from the Unmentionable

      Times. So it was true, and those Times had been, and all the

      wonders of those Times. Hundreds upon hundreds of years ago men

      knew secrets which we have lost. And we thought: “This is a foul

      place. They are damned who touch the things of the Unmentionable

      Times.” But our hand which followed the track, as we crawled,

      clung to the iron as if it would not leave it, as if the skin of

      our hand were thirsty and begging of the metal some secret fluid

      beating in its coldness.



      We returned to the earth. International 4-8818 looked upon us and

      stepped back.



      “Equality 7-2521,” they said, “your face is white.”



      But we could not speak and we stood looking upon them.



      They backed away, as if they dared not touch us. Then they

      smiled, but it was not a gay smile; it was lost and pleading. But

      still we could not speak. Then they said:



      “We shall report our find to the City Council and both of us will

      be rewarded.”



      And then we spoke. Our voice was hard and there was no mercy in

      our voice. We said:



      “We shall not report our find to the City Council. We shall not

      report it to any men.”



      They raised their hands to their ears, for never had they heard

      such words as these.



      “International 4-8818,” we asked, “will you report us to the

      Council and see us lashed to death before your eyes?”



      They stood straight all of a sudden and they answered: “Rather

      would we die.”



      “Then,” we said, “keep silent. This place is ours. This place

      belongs to us, Equality 7-2521, and to no other men on earth. And

      if ever we surrender it, we shall surrender our life with it

      also.”



      Then we saw that the eyes of International 4-8818 were full to

      the lids with tears they dared not drop. They whispered, and

      their voice trembled, so that their words lost all shape:



      “The will of the Council is above all things, for it is the will

      of our brothers, which is holy. But if you wish it so, we shall

      obey you. Rather shall we be evil with you than good with all our

      brothers. May the Council have mercy upon both our hearts!”



      Then we walked away together and back to the Home of the Street

      Sweepers. And we walked in silence.



      Thus did it come to pass that each night, when the stars are high

      and the Street Sweepers sit in the City Theatre, we, Equality

      7-2521, steal out and run through the darkness to our place. It

      is easy to leave the Theatre; when the candles are blown out and

      the Actors come onto the stage, no eyes can see us as we crawl

      under our seat and under the cloth of the tent. Later, it is easy

      to steal through the shadows and fall in line next to

      International 4-8818, as the column leaves the Theatre. It is

      dark in the streets and there are no men about, for no men may

      walk through the City when they have no mission to walk there.

      Each night, we run to the ravine, and we remove the stones which

      we have piled upon the iron grill to hide it from the men. Each

      night, for three hours, we are under the earth, alone.



      We have stolen candles from the Home of the Street Sweepers, we

      have stolen flints and knives and paper, and we have brought them

      to this place. We have stolen glass vials and powders and acids

      from the Home of the Scholars. Now we sit in the tunnel for three

      hours each night and we study. We melt strange metals, and we mix

      acids, and we cut open the bodies of the animals which we find in

      the City Cesspool. We have built an oven of the bricks we

      gathered in the streets. We burn the wood we find in the ravine.

      The fire flickers in the oven and blue shadows dance upon the

      walls, and there is no sound of men to disturb us.



      We have stolen manuscripts. This is a great offense. Manuscripts

      are precious, for our brothers in the Home of the Clerks spend

      one year to copy one single script in their clear handwriting.

      Manuscripts are rare and they are kept in the Home of the

      Scholars. So we sit under the earth and we read the stolen

      scripts. Two years have passed since we found this place. And in

      these two years we have learned more than we had learned in the

      ten years of the Home of the Students.



      We have learned things which are not in the scripts. We have

      solved secrets of which the Scholars have no knowledge. We have

      come to see how great is the unexplored, and many lifetimes will

      not bring us to the end of our quest. But we wish no end to our

      quest. We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to

      feel as if with each day our sight were growing sharper than the

      hawk’s and clearer than rock crystal.



      Strange are the ways of evil. We are false in the faces of our

      brothers. We are defying the will of our Councils. We alone, of

      the thousands who walk this earth, we alone in this hour are

      doing a work which has no purpose save that we wish to do it. The

      evil of our crime is not for the human mind to probe. The nature

      of our punishment, if it be discovered, is not for the human

      heart to ponder. Never, not in the memory of the Ancient Ones’

      Ancients, never have men done that which we are doing.



      And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to

      ourselves that we are a wretch and a traitor. But we feel no

      burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart. And it seems to

      us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no eyes save

      those of the sun. And in our heart—strange are the ways of

      evil!—in our heart there is the first peace we have known in

      twenty years.







      PART TWO



      Liberty 5-3000... Liberty five-three thousand ... Liberty

      5-3000....



      We wish to write this name. We wish to speak it, but we dare not

      speak it above a whisper. For men are forbidden to take notice of

      women, and women are forbidden to take notice of men. But we

      think of one among women, they whose name is Liberty 5-3000, and

      we think of no others. The women who have been assigned to work

      the soil live in the Homes of the Peasants beyond the City. Where

      the City ends there is a great road winding off to the north, and

      we Street Sweepers must keep this road clean to the first

      milepost. There is a hedge along the road, and beyond the hedge

      lie the fields. The fields are black and ploughed, and they lie

      like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some

      hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that hand, opening wide

      apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with

      thin, green spangles. Women work in the fields, and their white

      tunics in the wind are like the wings of sea-gulls beating over

      the black soil.



      And there it was that we saw Liberty 5-3000 walking along the

      furrows. Their body was straight and thin as a blade of iron.

      Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them,

      no kindness and no guilt. Their hair was golden as the sun; their

      hair flew in the wind, shining and wild, as if it defied men to

      restrain it. They threw seeds from their hand as if they deigned

      to fling a scornful gift, and the earth was a beggar under their

      feet.



      We stood still; for the first time did we know fear, and then

      pain. And we stood still that we might not spill this pain more

      precious than pleasure.



      Then we heard a voice from the others call their name: “Liberty

      5-3000,” and they turned and walked back. Thus we learned their

      name, and we stood watching them go, till their white tunic was

      lost in the blue mist.



      And the following day, as we came to the northern road, we kept

      our eyes upon Liberty 5-3000 in the field. And each day

      thereafter we knew the illness of waiting for our hour on the

      northern road. And there we looked at Liberty 5-3000 each day. We

      know not whether they looked at us also, but we think they did.

      Then one day they came close to the hedge, and suddenly they

      turned to us. They turned in a whirl and the movement of their

      body stopped, as if slashed off, as suddenly as it had started.

      They stood still as a stone, and they looked straight upon us,

      straight into our eyes. There was no smile on their face, and no

      welcome. But their face was taut, and their eyes were dark. Then

      they turned as swiftly, and they walked away from us.



      But the following day, when we came to the road, they smiled.

      They smiled to us and for us. And we smiled in answer. Their head

      fell back, and their arms fell, as if their arms and their thin

      white neck were stricken suddenly with a great lassitude. They

      were not looking upon us, but upon the sky. Then they glanced at

      us over their shoulder, as we felt as if a hand had touched our

      body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet.



      Every morning thereafter, we greeted each other with our eyes. We

      dared not speak. It is a transgression to speak to men of other

      Trades, save in groups at the Social Meetings. But once, standing

      at the hedge, we raised our hand to our forehead and then moved

      it slowly, palm down, toward Liberty 5-3000. Had the others seen

      it, they could have guessed nothing, for it looked only as if we

      were shading our eyes from the sun. But Liberty 5-3000 saw it and

      understood. They raised their hand to their forehead and moved it

      as we had. Thus, each day, we greet Liberty 5-3000, and they

      answer, and no men can suspect.



      We do not wonder at this new sin of ours. It is our second

      Transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our

      brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty

      5-3000. We do not know why we think of them. We do not know why,

      when we think of them, we feel all of a sudden that the earth is

      good and that it is not a burden to live. We do not think of them

      as Liberty 5-3000 any longer. We have given them a name in our

      thoughts. We call them the Golden One. But it is a sin to give

      men names which distinguish them from other men. Yet we call them

      the Golden One, for they are not like the others. The Golden One

      are not like the others.



      And we take no heed of the law which says that men may not think

      of women, save at the Time of Mating. This is the time each

      spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older

      than eighteen are sent for one night to the City Palace of

      Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to

      them by the Council of Eugenics. Children are born each winter,

      but women never see their children and children never know their

      parents. Twice have we been sent to the Palace of Mating, but it

      is an ugly and shameful matter, of which we do not like to think.



      We had broken so many laws, and today we have broken one more.

      Today, we spoke to the Golden One.



      The other women were far off in the field, when we stopped at the

      hedge by the side of the road. The Golden One were kneeling alone

      at the moat which runs through the field. And the drops of water

      falling from their hands, as they raised the water to their lips,

      were like sparks of fire in the sun. Then the Golden One saw us,

      and they did not move, kneeling there, looking at us, and circles

      of light played upon their white tunic, from the sun on the water

      of the moat, and one sparkling drop fell from a finger of their

      hand held as frozen in the air.



      Then the Golden One rose and walked to the hedge, as if they had

      heard a command in our eyes. The two other Street Sweepers of our

      brigade were a hundred paces away down the road. And we thought

      that International 4-8818 would not betray us, and Union 5-3992

      would not understand. So we looked straight upon the Golden One,

      and we saw the shadows of their lashes on their white cheeks and

      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

      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,

      and no anger, and no mercy. So when the oldest of them asked us:

      “Where have you been?” we thought of our glass box and of our

      light, and we forgot all else. And we answered:



      “We will not tell you.”



      The oldest did not question us further. They turned to the two

      youngest, and said, and their voice was bored:



      “Take our brother Equality 7-2521 to the Palace of Corrective

      Detention. Lash them until they tell.”



      So we were taken to the Stone Room under the Palace of Corrective

      Detention. This room has no windows and it is empty save for an

      iron post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather

      aprons and leather hoods over their faces. Those who had brought

      us departed, leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner

      of the room. The Judges were small, thin men, grey and bent. They

      gave the signal to the two strong hooded ones.



      They tore the clothes from our body, they threw us down upon our

      knees and they tied our hands to the iron post. The first blow of

      the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in two. The second

      blow stopped the first, and for a second we felt nothing, then

      the pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs

      without air. But we did not cry out.



      The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the

      blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling

      upon our back. Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A

      flaming grill kept dancing before our eyes, and we thought of

      nothing save that grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and

      then we knew that we were looking at the squares of the iron

      grill in the door, and there were also the squares of stone on

      the walls, and the squares which the lash was cutting upon our

      back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh.



      Then we saw a fist before us. It knocked our chin up, and we saw

      the red froth of our mouth on the withered fingers, and the Judge

      asked:



      “Where have you been?”



      But we jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands,

      and bit our lips.



      The lash whistled again. We wondered who was sprinkling burning

      coal dust upon the floor, for we saw drops of red twinkling on

      the stones around us.



      Then we knew nothing, save two voices snarling steadily, one

      after the other, even though we knew they were speaking many

      minutes apart:



      “Where have you been where have you been where have you been

      where have you been?...”



      And our lips moved, but the sound trickled back into our throat,

      and the sound was only:



      “The light... The light... The light....”



      Then we knew nothing.



      We opened our eyes, lying on our stomach on the brick floor of a

      cell. We looked upon two hands lying far before us on the bricks,

      and we moved them, and we knew that they were our hands. But we

      could not move our body. Then we smiled, for we thought of the

      light and that we had not betrayed it.



      We lay in our cell for many days. The door opened twice each day,

      once for the men who brought us bread and water, and once for the

      Judges. Many Judges came to our cell, first the humblest and then

      the most honored Judges of the City. They stood before us in

      their white togas, and they asked:



      “Are you ready to speak?”



      But we shook our head, lying before them on the floor. And they

      departed.



      We counted each day and each night as it passed. Then, tonight,

      we knew that we must escape. For tomorrow the World Council of

      Scholars is to meet in our City.



      It was easy to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention.

      The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about.

      There is no reason to have guards, for men have never defied the

      Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were

      ordered to be. Our body is healthy and strength returns to it

      speedily. We lunged against the door and it gave way. We stole

      through the dark passages, and through the dark streets, and down

      into our tunnel.



      We lit the candle and we saw that our place had not been found

      and nothing had been touched. And our glass box stood before us

      on the cold oven, as we had left it. What matter they now, the

      scars upon our back!



      Tomorrow, in the full light of day, we shall take our box, and

      leave our tunnel open, and walk through the streets to the Home

      of the Scholars. We shall put before them the greatest gift ever

      offered to men. We shall tell them the truth. We shall hand to

      them, as our confession, these pages we have written. We shall

      join our hands to theirs, and we shall work together, with the

      power of the sky, for the glory of mankind. Our blessing upon

      you, our brothers! Tomorrow, you will take us back into your fold

      and we shall be an outcast no longer. Tomorrow we shall be one of

      you again. Tomorrow...







      PART SEVEN



      It is dark here in the forest. The leaves rustle over our head,

      black against the last gold of the sky. The moss is soft and

      warm. We shall sleep on this moss for many nights, till the

      beasts of the forest come to tear our body. We have no bed now,

      save the moss, and no future, save the beasts.



      We are old now, yet we were young this morning, when we carried

      our glass box through the streets of the City to the Home of the

      Scholars. No men stopped us, for there were none about from the

      Palace of Corrective Detention, and the others knew nothing. No

      men stopped us at the gate. We walked through empty passages and

      into the great hall where the World Council of Scholars sat in

      solemn meeting.



      We saw nothing as we entered, save the sky in the great windows,

      blue and glowing. Then we saw the Scholars who sat around a long

      table; they were as shapeless clouds huddled at the rise of the

      great sky. There were men whose famous names we knew, and others

      from distant lands whose names we had not heard. We saw a great

      painting on the wall over their heads, of the twenty illustrious

      men who had invented the candle.



      All the heads of the Council turned to us as we entered. These

      great and wise of the earth did not know what to think of us, and

      they looked upon us with wonder and curiosity, as if we were a

      miracle. It is true that our tunic was torn and stained with

      brown stains which had been blood. We raised our right arm and we

      said:



      “Our greeting to you, our honored brothers of the World Council

      of Scholars!”



      Then Collective 0-0009, the oldest and wisest of the Council,

      spoke and asked:



      “Who are you, our brother? For you do not look like a Scholar.”



      “Our name is Equality 7-2521,” we answered, “and we are a Street

      Sweeper of this City.”



      Then it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the

      Scholars spoke at once, and they were angry and frightened.



      “A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World

      Council of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all

      the rules and all the laws!”



      But we knew how to stop them.



      “Our brothers!” we said. “We matter not, nor our transgression.

      It is only our brother men who matter. Give no thought to us, for

      we are nothing, but listen to our words, for we bring you a gift

      such as had never been brought to men. Listen to us, for we hold

      the future of mankind in our hands.”



      Then they listened.



      We placed our glass box upon the table before them. We spoke of

      it, and of our long quest, and of our tunnel, and of our escape

      from the Palace of Corrective Detention. Not a hand moved in that

      hall, as we spoke, nor an eye. Then we put the wires to the box,

      and they all bent forward and sat still, watching. And we stood

      still, our eyes upon the wire. And slowly, slowly as a flush of

      blood, a red flame trembled in the wire. Then the wire glowed.



      But terror struck the men of the Council. They leapt to their

      feet, they ran from the table, and they stood pressed against the

      wall, huddled together, seeking the warmth of one another’s

      bodies to give them courage.



      We looked upon them and we laughed and said:



      “Fear nothing, our brothers. There is a great power in these

      wires, but this power is tamed. It is yours. We give it to you.”



      Still they would not move.



      “We give you the power of the sky!” we cried. “We give you the

      key to the earth! Take it, and let us be one of you, the humblest

      among you. Let us all work together, and harness this power, and

      make it ease the toil of men. Let us throw away our candles and

      our torches. Let us flood our cities with light. Let us bring a

      new light to men!”



      But they looked upon us, and suddenly we were afraid. For their

      eyes were still, and small, and evil.



      “Our brothers!” we cried. “Have you nothing to say to us?”



      Then Collective 0-0009 moved forward. They moved to the table and

      the others followed.



      “Yes,” spoke Collective 0-0009, “we have much to say to you.”



      The sound of their voices brought silence to the hall and to beat

      of our heart.



      “Yes,” said Collective 0-0009, “we have much to say to a wretch

      who have broken all the laws and who boast of their infamy!



      “How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the

      minds of your brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you

      should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be

      of greater use to men than in sweeping the streets?”



      “How dared you, gutter cleaner,” spoke Fraternity 9-3452, “to

      hold yourself as one alone and with the thoughts of the one and

      not of the many?”



      “You shall be burned at the stake,” said Democracy 4-6998.



      “No, they shall be lashed,” said Unanimity 7-3304, “till there is

      nothing left under the lashes.”



      “No,” said Collective 0-0009, “we cannot decide upon this, our

      brothers. No such crime has ever been committed, and it is not

      for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this

      creature to the World Council itself and let their will be done.”



      We looked upon them and we pleaded:



      “Our brothers! You are right. Let the will of the Council be done

      upon our body. We do not care. But the light? What will you do

      with the light?”



      Collective 0-0009 looked upon us, and they smiled.



      “So you think that you have found a new power,” said Collective

      0-0009. “Do all your brothers think that?”



      “No,” we answered.



      “What is not thought by all men cannot be true,” said Collective

      0-0009.



      “You have worked on this alone?” asked International 1-5537.



      “Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas

      in the past,” said Solidarity 8-1164, “but when the majority of

      their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their

      ideas, as all men must.”



      “This box is useless,” said Alliance 6-7349.



      “Should it be what they claim of it,” said Harmony 9-2642, “then

      it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a

      great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it

      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.



      We have walked for many days. The forest has no end, and we seek

      no end. But each day added to the chain of days between us and

      the City is like an added blessing.



      We have made a bow and many arrows. We can kill more birds than

      we need for our food; we find water and fruit in the forest. At

      night, we choose a clearing, and we build a ring of fires around

      it. We sleep in the midst of that ring, and the beasts dare not

      attack us. We can see their eyes, green and yellow as coals,

      watching us from the tree branches beyond. The fires smoulder as

      a crown of jewels around us, and smoke stands still in the air,

      in columns made blue by the moonlight. We sleep together in the

      midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden One around us, their

      head upon our breast.



      Some day, we shall stop and build a house, when we shall have

      gone far enough. But we do not have to hasten. The days before us

      are without end, like the forest.



      We cannot understand this new life which we have found, yet it

      seems so clear and so simple. When questions come to puzzle us,

      we walk faster, then turn and forget all things as we watch the

      Golden One following. The shadows of leaves fall upon their arms,

      as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the

      sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue mist, but their

      shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from

      above, but rose from under their skin. We watch the leaf which

      has fallen upon their shoulder, and it lies at the curve of their

      neck, and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel. They

      approach us, and they stop, laughing, knowing what we think, and

      they wait obediently, without questions, till it pleases us to

      turn and go on.



      We go on and we bless the earth under our feet. But questions

      come to us again, as we walk in silence. If that which we have

      found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for

      save corruption? If this is the great evil of being alone, then

      what is good and what is evil?



      Everything which comes from the many is good. Everything which

      comes from one is evil. This have we been taught with our first

      breath. We have broken the law, but we have never doubted it. Yet

      now, as we walk through the forest, we are learning to doubt.



      There is no life for men, save in useful toil for the good of all

      their brothers. But we lived not, when we toiled for our

      brothers, we were only weary. There is no joy for men, save the

      joy shared with all their brothers. But the only things which

      taught us joy were the power we created in our wires, and the

      Golden One. And both these joys belong to us alone, they come

      from us alone, they bear no relation to all our brothers, and

      they do not concern our brothers in any way. Thus do we wonder.



      There is some error, one frightful error, in the thinking of men.

      What is that error? We do not know, but the knowledge struggles

      within us, struggles to be born. Today, the Golden One stopped

      suddenly and said:



      “We love you.”



      But they frowned and shook their head and looked at us

      helplessly.



      “No,” they whispered, “that is not what we wished to say.”



      They were silent, then they spoke slowly, and their words were

      halting, like the words of a child learning to speak for the

      first time:



      “We are one... alone... and only... and we love you who are

      one... alone... and only.”



      We looked into each other’s eyes and we knew that the breath of a

      miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly.



      And we felt torn, torn for some word we could not find.







      PART TEN



      We are sitting at a table and we are writing this upon paper made

      thousands of years ago. The light is dim, and we cannot see the

      Golden One, only one lock of gold on the pillow of an ancient

      bed. This is our home.



      We came upon it today, at sunrise. For many days we had been

      crossing a chain of mountains. The forest rose among cliffs, and

      whenever we walked out upon a barren stretch of rock we saw great

      peaks before us in the west, and to the north of us, and to the

      south, as far as our eyes could see. The peaks were red and

      brown, with the green streaks of forests as veins upon them, with

      blue mists as veils over their heads. We had never heard of these

      mountains, nor seen them marked on any map. The Uncharted Forest

      has protected them from the Cities and from the men of the

      Cities.



      We climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones

      rolled from under our feet, and we heard them striking the rocks

      below, farther and farther down, and the mountains rang with each

      stroke, and long after the strokes had died. But we went on, for

      we knew that no men would ever follow our track nor reach us

      here.



      Then today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees,

      high on a sheer peak before us. We thought that it was a fire and

      stopped. But the flame was unmoving, yet blinding as liquid

      metal. So we climbed toward it through the rocks. And there,

      before us, on a broad summit, with the mountains rising behind

      it, stood a house such as we had never seen, and the white fire

      came from the sun on the glass of its windows.



      The house had two stories and a strange roof flat as a floor.

      There was more window than wall upon its walls, and the windows

      went on straight around the corners, though how this kept the

      house standing we could not guess. The walls were hard and

      smooth, of that stone unlike stone which we had seen in our

      tunnel.



      We both knew it without words: this house was left from the

      Unmentionable Times. The trees had protected it from time and

      weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather.

      We turned to the Golden One and we asked:



      “Are you afraid?”



      But they shook their head. So we walked to the door, and we threw

      it open, and we stepped together into the house of the

      Unmentionable Times.



      We shall need the days and the years ahead, to look, to learn,

      and to understand the things of this house. Today, we could only

      look and try to believe the sight of our eyes. We pulled the

      heavy curtains from the windows and we saw that the rooms were

      small, and we thought that not more than twelve men could have

      lived here. We thought it strange that men had been permitted to

      build a house for only twelve.



      Never had we seen rooms so full of light. The sunrays danced upon

      colors, colors, more colors than we thought possible, we who had

      seen no houses save the white ones, the brown ones and the grey.

      There were great pieces of glass on the walls, but it was not

      glass, for when we looked upon it we saw our own bodies and all

      the things behind us, as on the face of a lake. There were

      strange things which we had never seen and the use of which we do

      not know. And there were globes of glass everywhere, in each

      room, the globes with the metal cobwebs inside, such as we had

      seen in our tunnel.



      We found the sleeping hall and we stood in awe upon its

      threshold. For it was a small room and there were only two beds

      in it. We found no other beds in the house, and then we knew that

      only two had lived here, and this passes understanding. What kind

      of world did they have, the men of the Unmentionable Times?



      We found garments, and the Golden One gasped at the sight of

      them. For they were not white tunics, nor white togas; they were

      of all colors, no two of them alike. Some crumbled to dust as we

      touched them. But others were of heavier cloth, and they felt

      soft and new in our fingers.



      We found a room with walls made of shelves, which held rows of

      manuscripts, from the floor to the ceiling. Never had we seen

      such a number of them, nor of such strange shape. They were not

      soft and rolled, they had hard shells of cloth and leather; and

      the letters on their pages were so small and so even that we

      wondered at the men who had such handwriting. We glanced through

      the pages, and we saw that they were written in our language, but

      we found many words which we could not understand. Tomorrow, we

      shall begin to read these scripts.



      When we had seen all the rooms of the house, we looked at the

      Golden One and we both knew the thought in our minds.



      “We shall never leave this house,” we said, “nor let it be taken

      from us. This is our home and the end of our journey. This is

      your house, Golden One, and ours, and it belongs to no other men

      whatever as far as the earth may stretch. We shall not share it

      with others, as we share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor

      our hunger. So be it to the end of our days.”



      “Your will be done,” they said.



      Then we went out to gather wood for the great hearth of our home.

      We brought water from the stream which runs among the trees under

      our windows. We killed a mountain goat, and we brought its flesh

      to be cooked in a strange copper pot we found in a place of

      wonders, which must have been the cooking room of the house.



      We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the

      Golden One away from the big glass which is not glass. They stood

      before it and they looked and looked upon their own body.



      When the sun sank beyond the mountains, the Golden One fell

      asleep on the floor, amidst jewels, and bottles of crystal, and

      flowers of silk. We lifted the Golden One in our arms and we

      carried them to a bed, their head falling softly upon our

      shoulder. Then we lit a candle, and we brought paper from the

      room of the manuscripts, and we sat by the window, for we knew

      that we could not sleep tonight.



      And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock

      and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world

      that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a

      first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give, nor

      what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits.

      It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before us, but it

      wishes a greater gift for us. We are to speak. We are to give its

      goal, its highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and

      sky.



      We look ahead, we beg our heart for guidance in answering this

      call no voice has spoken, yet we have heard. We look upon our

      hands. We see the dust of centuries, the dust which hid the great

      secrets and perhaps great evils. And yet it stirs no fear within

      our heart, but only silent reverence and pity.



      May knowledge come to us! What is the secret our heart has

      understood and yet will not reveal to us, although it seems to

      beat as if it were endeavoring to tell it?







      PART ELEVEN



      I am. I think. I will.



      My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of

      mine.... What must I say besides? These are the words. This is

      the answer.



      I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I

      spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the

      quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning.

      I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for

      being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant

      and the sanction.



      It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty

      to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my

      ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and

      the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find

      the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will

      is the only edict I must respect.



      Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are

      false, but only three are holy: “I will it!”



      Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding

      star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one

      direction. They point to me.



      I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the

      universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know

      not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me

      on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it.

      My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is

      its own goal. It is its own purpose.



      Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish.

      I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs.

      I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on

      their altars.



      I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine

      to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!



      I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune

      of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to

      the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my

      treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of

      these is freedom.



      I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I

      ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no

      man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.



      I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of

      them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must

      do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without

      reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I

      honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.



      I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters.

      And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love

      and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our

      hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the

      temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his

      temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with

      others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.



      For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and

      as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within

      man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils

      on earth, the root of man’s torture by men, and of an unspeakable

      lie.



      The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens

      to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and

      that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the

      word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which

      the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal

      the wisdom of the sages.



      What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it?

      What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is

      my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent,

      are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and

      to obey?



      But I am done with this creed of corruption.



      I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of

      plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.



      And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the

      earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being,

      this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.



      This god, this one word:



      “I.”





      PART TWELVE



      It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house

      that I saw the word “I.” And when I understood this word, the

      book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears.

      I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.



      I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I

      understood why the best in me had been my sins and my

      transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I

      understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the

      spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.



      I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One,

      and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked

      at me and the first words she spoke were:



      “I love you.”



      Then I said:



      “My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names.

      There was a time when each man had a name of his own to

      distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I

      have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of

      all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He

      took the light of the gods and he brought it to men, and he

      taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all

      bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus.”



      “It shall be your name,” said the Golden One.



      “And I have read of a goddess,” I said, “who was the mother of

      the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be

      your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new

      kind of gods.”



      “It shall be my name,” said the Golden One.



      Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the

      pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his heir, as the

      heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him

      and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter

      what name they gave to their cause and their truth.



      I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the

      earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets

      from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the

      achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them further,

      the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my

      brothers, for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest

      ones among them.



      I have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long

      ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that moved

      their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light which

      came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the

      engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it

      and how to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires

      which carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires

      around my home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a

      barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of

      granite; a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. For

      they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their

      numbers. I have my mind.



      Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and

      nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is

      pregnant with my child. Our son will be raised as a man. He will

      be taught to say “I” and to bear the pride of it. He will be

      taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught

      reverence for his own spirit.



      When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when

      my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day,

      for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call

      to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and

      all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason,

      and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few

      others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit

      has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of

      their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my

      fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my

      chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter

      in the new history of man.



      These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door

      of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the

      history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I

      wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was

      the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from

      what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him,

      save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.

      That is freedom. That and nothing else.



      At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their

      chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their

      chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race.

      But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a

      man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take

      away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right

      of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he

      stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the

      centuries behind him had been spilled.



      But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his

      savage beginning.



      What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away

      from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and

      submission? The worship of the word “We.”



      When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries

      collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come

      from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages,

      from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for

      its own sake. Those men who survived those eager to obey, eager

      to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate

      them—those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had

      received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on

      earth. Thus did men—men with nothing to offer save their great

      number—lost the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires,

      all the things they had not created and could never keep.

      Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the

      courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these

      men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I

      have been answered—and for the same reasons.



      But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years

      of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were

      going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I

      wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the

      word “I” could give it up and not know what they lost. But such

      has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned,

      and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.



      Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of

      clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word.

      What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw

      coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and

      in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they,

      these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their

      banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for

      they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my

      pity.



      Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to

      tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final,

      and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost

      can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never

      perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which

      men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this

      earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but

      it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men.



      Here on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall

      build our new land and our fort. And it will become as the heart

      of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating

      louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner of the

      earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will

      carry the best of the world’s blood to my threshold. And all my

      brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but

      they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I

      shall break all the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of

      the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world

      where each man will be free to exist for his own sake.



      For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my

      chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his

      life. For his honor.



      And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone

      the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which

      will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can

      never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the

      meaning and the glory.



      The sacred word:



      EGO