_THE COMING OF THE AMAZONS_
THE COMING OF
THE AMAZONS
A SATIRISTIC SPECULATION ON
THE SCIENTIFIC FUTURE
OF CIVILIZATION
BY
OWEN JOHNSON
AUTHOR OF “SACRIFICE,” ETC.
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
NEW YORK · TORONTO
1931
JOHNSON
THE COMING OF THE AMAZONS
COPYRIGHT · 1931
BY OWEN JOHNSON
First edition October 1931
Reprinted October 1931
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_To_
HARRIE T. LINDEBERG
PREFACE
It is now one week since the termination of the extraordinary adventure
which happened to me in this, the third week in November 1929. Every
detail, even to the least conversation is clear in my memory as I
start to set down my strange revelation. I, John Bogardus, graduate of
Harvard and Oxford, descendant of a virile patroon ancestry, now in my
thirty-second year make this record, that my fellow men, at present
supinely indifferent to the alarming portent of the feminist uprising,
may perceive before it is too late, the hideous catastrophe toward
which in the relentless war of the sexes we are blindly drifting.
On the fifteenth of November I had sought refuge at my club in the
company of my old friend Dr. Sachaloff, a biologist in the ----
Foundation, whose propensity to think out loud had proved exceedingly
irritating to the mediocrity of his associates.
We had lunched and wined in a manner befitting the cellar inherited
from my paternal grandfather, and luncheon over, the conversation had
run along lines of scientific speculation into the future of society
and the possibilities of the prolongation of life. Dr. Sachaloff,
sure of my confidence, had permitted his imagination the unpardonable
scientific liberty of prophecy. He declared that while the complete
conquest of the natural processes of decay must still be regarded as
an impossibility, still, with the elimination of present scourges and
a fuller control of the glandular sources of energy, _theoretically_
(a word which he pronounced with deliberate emphasis) the span of life
might eventually be prolonged from two to three hundred years. However,
he qualified this audacity by adding that the birth of new diseases
must be reckoned with. I immediately broached an idea which had been
long in my mind.
“If,” I began eagerly, “organic bodies can be kept long periods free
from decomposition by freezing processes and human beings thrown into a
cataleptic state which so nearly resembles death as to defy the acutest
observer, why couldn’t a man by some induced hypnotic catalepsy be then
subjected to an intense refrigeration and kept alive in cold storage
over a long period of years?”
“Port like this,” said Dr. Sachaloff raising his glass to the light,
“is a great stimulation to the imagination.”
“Come now--” I replied with a wheedling smile, “in a mood of pure
speculation?”
“Do you want to have me deported from the country, John?”
“But what about the mystery of hibernation,” I persisted. “Is that not
a similar arrestation of life? Curious in the larger forms of animal
life, more and more inexplicable as we descend into the reptiles and
bacterial phenomena.”
“Strange you should have mentioned hibernation,” he said with an
expression in his eyes that struck me. I taxed him with concealing his
real opinion.
“What is true to any form of life may be possible to all,” I continued.
“We need not accept all the stories of toads being shut up for
ten--twenty years, but the authentic records are startling enough.”
“Very.”
“And is not hibernation a state of induced catalepsy--self hypnotism if
you will?”
He admitted at last with a glance over his shoulder that,
_theoretically_ (again he dwelt on the word) there was ground for
speculation. Then having sworn me into secrecy, he disclosed to me that
he had long considered the problem, that in fact he had constructed a
machine with which he intended to conduct certain experimental tests
with animals. The hypnotic state of catalepsy, he explained, was really
so essential that unless some human being could be induced to make the
experiment he had doubts of arriving at any conclusions of significance.
“What a pity you are young, happily married and possessed of an
excellent liver,” he concluded looking at me hungrily. “Think what it
would be to wake up in another century.”
I rose with a chill in my back, exclaiming:
“Sachaloff, you _are_ serious!”
“Theoretically, theoretically,” he mumbled.
“But does such a machine exist?” I asked doubtfully, knowing his
reputation as a practical joker.
“Come tomorrow to the laboratory, and see for yourself.”
“Would it be safe?” I exclaimed laughing.
“Come armed then,” he replied smiling. “However, John,” he continued
glancing at the table, “your wine was good, too good. Remember that the
conversation was not serious.”
“Except theoretically.”
“Quite so. Quite so.”
* * * * *
I left the Club about four o’clock and proceeded homeward by way of
Park Avenue. I had hardly gone a block when a familiar voice called me
and I looked up into the charming eyes of Kitty Dalgleesh.
“Why, John, you were in the clouds,” she exclaimed laughingly. “What
can be worrying you, the happily married man?”
“Perhaps I was worrying about you,” I said maliciously, for I was
sensitive to the jibes of my friends at my complete and astonishing
domestication.
“How so?”
“You are approaching a dreadful spinsterhood.”
“How nasty. Just because I wouldn’t rush into marriage with you?”
My eyebrows went up at this impertinence, but Kitty was irresistible
with her dimple and I yielded to temptation.
“Seriously, why don’t you start marrying?” I said drawing her arm
through mine.
“Seriously, I have never found anyone I liked better than you.”
“I tried to convince you of that--you remember.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t marry Ernesta. You’d have been only a lady’s
maid, Ernesta is too publicly brilliant for you. But I didn’t foresee
sister Emelia.” She thought a moment, “You look disconcertingly happy.
It’s quite discouraging.”
“How you must suffer!”
“Just because I didn’t want to marry you, then and there, doesn’t mean
I didn’t love you, John.”
“I perceive my cue.”
“Oh, no. I’m not starting a flirtation with you,” she said disengaging
her arm. “I might have if you were unhappy. However, one word of
advice,--for your own good.”
“What now?”
“Beware! You have married two mothers-in-law, mother and sister. Dear
me, you don’t seem to respond. You _are_ happy, John. I’m running away.”
The suggestion that Kitty had artfully implanted in my imagination
disturbed me though I tried to shake it off. It was in line with my own
growing forebodings.
When I entered my home, I found tea spread and a group of women
listening to Mrs. Agatha Billings laying down the daily law with
occasional sallies from Ernesta. My mother-in-law is a woman of
terrific dignity; calmly impressive as the classic portraits of Martha
Washington whom she resembles. Ernesta is a young Amazon, who leads
parades of protest on horseback, who writes Latin poetry, has taken
her bar examination and spends five thousand a year on her clothes.
Mrs. Billings was sitting like a statue of Memnon, planted in her
opinions, and remaining thus rigidly entrenched gestured only with
her fingers. Ernesta, on the contrary, strode up and down, using her
hands like an Italian, throwing off her arguments like the brilliant
cadenza of a coloratura soprano. Emelia, my wife, listened modestly
but rapturously. There were present the militant Mrs. Zanzigger, head
of an impressive concentration of women’s clubs and two stern faced
delegates, with heavy wrinkled boots, from affiliated societies across
the sea.
I excused myself wearily and slipped into a further library where
I could hear but not be seen. On the table, placed there for my
education, were the works of Bertrand Russell, Elinor Keyes, Havelocke
Ellis, and the whole gamut of the psycho-analysts. I took up a volume,
concentrated, yawned and put it down.
The voice of my mother-in-law coldly irritant rose from the other room.
“The history of society wherever we study it profoundly is simply the
record of the warfare of the sexes. No wonder then that marriage must
remain the battle ground.”
“But,” objected Mrs. Zanzigger, who was militant but not advanced, “in
modern marriage, with equal division of economic responsibility and a
common standard of moral judgment, isn’t an intellectual companionship
possible?”
“After sixty, perhaps,” interrupted Ernesta. “But where sex is
involved it is inevitable that each through the instinct of jealousy
and possession will always seek to limit the liberty of the other.
You can never change the essential quality of marriage. What we must
look forward to is the shifting of authorities. Man-made marriage is a
failure. The salvation of society is in the future of woman.”
“The salvation of _civilization_, of all economic and political reform
is in the true development of woman,” corrected my mother-in-law in her
coldly treble voice.
“Yes, Mamma,” said Ernesta. “I was coming to that.”
“Mrs. Billings is right, quite right,” broke in a guttural Scandinavian
voice. “Society has gone as far as it can go under the man era. All men
understand is the instinct they were born with, to wrestle and claw and
fight down one another.”
I yawned again and peeped into the pages of “Marriage and Morals.” I
knew the arguments by heart....
“But how can we do without them?” said Mrs. Zanzigger faintly.
“What becomes of men is unimportant,” said Ernesta parading the floor.
“They will return to their clubs probably. The woman’s movement has
only just begun. Suffrage is the first step. What are we going to do
with marriage, with the home, with the children? Is woman to remain an
adjunct or free herself as a completed individuality? We must destroy
all traditional inhibitions; the fear complexes that are holding her
back. We must make her look on herself not as man’s equal but as man’s
superior.”
“If the children are to be kept in the home,” said the guttural voice,
“what then?”
“Then the man must look after them,” said Ernesta to the accompaniment
of a ripple of laughter. “The age of physical force is over. The age of
intellect is coming. Only physical force has kept woman as the mistress
of man and the nurse of his children. When machinery has neutralized
muscle, a woman will be able to run the machinery as well as man.”
“Our program should be political action, to enlarge our economic
progress,” said Mrs. Billings. “We should always have in view, as
Ernesta has correctly expressed my views, that ahead of us is the dawn
of a higher civilization, freed from old superstitions and based on
logic and scientific readjustments. Only women have the imagination and
courage to bring that about.”
After this I heard only confusedly, my head must have begun to nod, for
sounds and forms became confused and my book slid to the floor.
All at once--a brilliant light seemed to play about me. I started up
and found myself on a stretcher in the laboratory of my friend Dr.
Sachaloff, with two white clad nurses bending over me. My friend came
over.
“Well, John, if you still wish to back out, this is your last chance.
Everything is ready. You’ve stood the preliminary tests astonishingly
well. Heart action, liver, blood and respiration, perfect. Do you feel
any discomfort?”
“Not the slightest.”
“I’ve had you in a cataleptic state for just eight hours at a
temperature as low as forty degrees. The thing is practically possible
without a doubt. Is it all aboard for the twenty-first century?”
I found myself replying as though perfectly conscious of an ulterior
decision.
“I wouldn’t change places with you for the world. On with the great
adventure!”
“Bon voyage, you lucky dog!” said Sachaloff grasping my hand. “Now
look me fixedly in the eyes, so.”
I saw the steely eyes, through the bushy dark whiskers, felt a sudden
pain from the pressure of the fingers on my brow and again all outlines
became watery and evasive.
_THE COMING OF THE AMAZONS_
THE COMING OF THE AMAZONS
CHAPTER I
My first sensation on awakening was of being submerged and fighting my
way back to the surface. Then a murmur of women’s voices.
“He’s breathing naturally now, but keep the pulmonator ready in case of
a relapse.”
My mouth was forced open and some liquid of a salty taste ran like fire
down my throat.
“What temperature?”
“Raise him to ten above zero, but slowly and hold it there for ten
minutes. Then continue to heat the body gradually until we reach forty.
How is the heart action?”
“Strong.”
“Respiration?”
“Excellent.”
“Give him the saline every half hour.”
After that I must have lapsed into unconsciousness again, for the
next impressions were fitful and interrupted like the lifting and
settling of a fog at sea. Gradually under the effects of some powerful
restorative I became feebly awake, but every sensation of the body
was diminished. I heard sounds as though from a great distance. From
time to time I was aware of the same salty, fiery liquid passing down
my throat. My eyes perceived the glimmerings of a colored light and
my body felt in its numbness a touch of warmth, as though a myriad of
small flies were delicately passing over the dried surfaces of my skin.
This feeling of returning sensation became more acute. I opened my
eyes, but the effort was like a straining of the back muscles to raise
an unaccustomed weight. I tried to raise my hand but found no reaction.
Again I went through the mental processes of ordering my limbs to move
only to find that not the slightest physical response occurred. My mind
was awake, my body asleep. Some heavy substance enclosed my eyes and
let in a diluted minimum of feeble purple light.
My first thought was that I was coming out of ether but my brain
was clearing so rapidly that I rejected this explanation. I tried
to remember and discovered that my memories were clear. I recalled
distinctly the last words of my friend, Dr. Sachaloff, the boring
sensation of his eyes above me and the pleasant sensation of fading
consciousness. Was I awake or in the grip of an artificial dream
induced by an opiate? Were the voices I heard about me simply the
figments of my imagination?
At this moment I felt a sensation of warmth at the back of my neck
which gradually extended over my back and down my arms like the
tingling heat of a myriad electric needles.
“Are you conscious now?” said a voice.
By great effort I succeeded in producing a sound in my throat.
“I hear you. Everything is going well. Relax completely. I am going
to put you to sleep again while we complete the defrigeration of your
body. By tomorrow all will be normal.”
“What beautiful teeth and all his own,” I heard another voice say as I
passed blissfully into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
When I awoke for the second time, I found myself strapped to a
stretcher, enveloped in warm soft coverings. My head alone was free to
move but a bandage over my eyes shut out all opportunity to see what
was transpiring about me. At the motion of my head a soft hand was
placed on my shoulder and a voice said:
“How do you feel?”
“All right.”
“Are you warm enough?”
“Yes.”
“Any buzzing in your head or ears?”
“No.”
“Can you move your fingers?”
“Perfectly.”
“Your feet?”
“The same.”
“Without pain?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not particularly.”
“Thirsty?”
“No.”
“Is there anything you want?”
“I want to see.”
“Very well, but be careful to obey implicitly my directions. Otherwise
you may be blinded by too sudden an exposure to the light.”
A heavy glass frame replaced the bandages.
“I am giving you a fortifying solution to strengthen your eyesight.
Open your eyes and keep them open. Does that hurt?”
“No, very pleasant.”
“Now I am letting in the light gradually. If you feel any strain tell
me at once.”
I became aware of the same misty violet light that I remembered on
first awakening. This dissolved into a greyish blue, to be succeeded
by a green changing to orange. This process of gradual modification
lasted about two hours, without having produced any disagreeable
effect. My eyes were again washed out and a pair of greyish glasses
replaced the weight on my forehead. I sat up and looked about me.
The first thing I perceived was a great stretch of blue sky without
horizon. At the same time I was aware of a pleasant floating motion.
My first thought was that I was on the deck of a ship, riding on a
lazy sea. But a second glance showed neither masts nor funnels to
mar the blue unity above me. I soon recognized that I was in an open
air hospital, with rows of white cots and moving white-clad nurses.
Probably, I was on top of a modern skyscraper, two or three thousand
feet from the ground. A score of women in loose Grecian robes were
standing around, gazing at me with the utmost curiosity. Two things
struck me at once. They were all of a uniform stature, at least seven
feet in height, slender, broad-shouldered, and all had the blue eyes
and pale yellow hair of the true Scandinavian blonde. Furthermore
as far as I could judge, they appeared all to be of an age between
twenty-five and thirty. One who evidently was of superior rank
approached and put me through the following interrogatory:
“Have you any sensation of dizziness?”
“Not the slightest.”
“You can move your arms freely?”
“Perfectly.”
“Do you feel able to answer a few questions?”
“Gladly. Only tell me where I am.”
“You are in the Aerodrome Hospital above New York.”
“Above? How far above?”
“About three miles.”
“How long have I been here?”
“A month. We have purposely extended the defrigeration process in your
case to eliminate all danger of sudden shock.”
“What month is this, then?”
“Athena, the thirteenth month of the year.”
“And the date?”
“2181.”
Strange to say I felt no giddiness. From my first awakening, I had
been prepared to find Dr. Sachaloff’s experiment successful, though I
confess the extent of my journey through time was unexpected.
“Now if it does not tire you too much--”
“Not at all. I feel astonishingly well.”
“What year then were you committed to the Frigidrome?”
“1929.”
There was an outburst of exclamations at this. I felt myself the
cynosure of all eyes.
“You are certain of the date?”
“Absolutely. November 15th, 1929.”
“But the Frigidrome was not in general use until the year 2075.”
“Nevertheless I repeat the date was November 15, 1929, tenth year of
prohibition, and two weeks after the collapse of the stock market in
the reign of Mr. Hoover.”
I heard a murmur in which I distinctly caught the words, “prohibition,”
“stock market,” “Hoover,” pronounced in various degrees of
incomprehension.
“You speak of things that are strange to us. For the moment we’ll
postpone our inquiry until you have had time to thoroughly recover. But
first, what is your name?”
“My family name? Bogardus. John Bogardus.”
“Family name? What is that?”
“Why the name of the father and mother--the name of the children.
Family name--name of the family.” I looked around at their puzzled
expressions and a light dawned on me. “What--doesn’t the family exist?
Has marriage been abolished?”
My interlocutor made a sign to her companions who withdrew, and
approaching me said gently:
“Bogardus, if what you say is true, you will find many startling
changes. You must prepare yourself, but your arrival here is so
revolutionary that in the interests of science we must guard against
any shock that might affect your brain.”
In my impatience, I started to make a feverish protest but a hand laid
on my lips stopped me short.
“Never fear. I shall take the best of care of you. Tomorrow, we’ll talk
over many things. Now as the weather bureau is turning on the rain
tonight, we must hurry down.” She stopped and looking at me with a
fascinated intentness said, “Bogardus, you have the most beautiful hair
and teeth I’ve ever seen. And I love your eyes and smile. We don’t have
males like you now-a-days.”
She put her arms under me and lifted me lightly up, holding me a moment
suspended. Her blue eyes were close over mine, she was smiling with
a smile that was tantalizing, magnetic, and ardently possessive. She
reminded me, yes, all at once she reminded me of Ernesta.
“I’ve seen you before,” I said drowsily. “What is your name?”
“Acquilla.”
I could not meet the flame in her glance, my eyelids closed and with a
sigh, my head relaxed against her protecting breast.