I rose and followed Acquilla to the circular theatre which I learned
formed the principal axis of every house.
“There are a number of interesting things going on,” said Acquilla,
“particularly in Arcturus III, where there is a war on with Stella IV.
Then you will be interested in the historical records of the wars of
1984 and 1994, but not tonight. Nine o’clock. The opera is beginning.”
She went to a switchboard at one side and made certain adjustments. A
heavy screen immediately shut out the glass dome above us through which
the stars had been shining down.
“How near do you want to be, Bogardus?”
“What! Can you regulate that, too?”
“Easiest thing in the world. It will probably be more interesting to
you to have a front seat. Afterwards, if the orchestra is too loud, we
can move back.”
She extinguished the lights and took a place at my side. All at once
the theatre, for such I must call it, was flooded with light and before
my astounded eyes I beheld a vast rippling of waters, while the air was
filled with the opening bars. Across the glistening green seas under
the blue dome a ship grew out of the horizon and bore down upon us with
colored sails bellying above the glistening of iron and bronze upon
the decks. The prelude closed and with a sudden shift, I found myself
literally on the deck, so complete was the illusion presented. The
figures appeared not only in their natural size and color, but in three
dimensions so that I could not repress an exclamation of astonishment,
so life like was the corporeal illusion. The orchestra was hidden
and reinforced by new varieties of wind and string instruments that
were exceedingly pleasant to the ear. The stage, needless to say, had
disappeared. Above us was the cloud-swept sky, about us the grey-blue
splash of waves. We were within twenty feet of the principal actors,
who for all purposes of illusion, might have been bodily in the room.
Though only an amateur in my love of music, I perceived at once certain
agreeable innovations. The stilted dramatic action had been replaced
by a naturalness of movement which nevertheless harmonized with the
melodic rhythm. The music, likewise, due no doubt to our proximity,
was no longer delivered with the need of filling a vast auditorium,
but phrased with a delicacy that revealed a hundred new shades. As
for the performance of the celebrated Dianne, I cannot express my
admiration. Isolde in her hands was no longer a stalking classical
puppet of conventionality, a thinly disguised sophisticate, but a
tempestuous, savage nature, barbaric and impulsive as a wild animal.
She was strangely slender and youthful and eschewing the traditional
flaxen wig, had the blue-black hair and the clear azure eyes of the
dark Scandinavian, eyes which suggested now the mysteries of black
caverns, now the leap of free seas. To my imagination at least, the
impersonation, cleared of all artificiality, transported me back with
an utter absence of criticism into the elemental, even brutal passions
of a barbaric race.
I had never seen anything more entrancing than the lithe grace of her
feline movements, nor listened with more troubled ecstasy to the thrill
of her warm, full-throated notes. Whether art or nature, she was the
woman of a forgotten age that never knew the sophisticated mincings
of our modern coquettes, but were swept into turbulent, even tragic
passions by elemental emotions. At the first glance of her startled
eyes I fell hopelessly, headlong in love, love at first sight, as
sudden, as poignant as though I had received the blow between my eyes.
So swift, so overwhelming was the shock that it blotted out all
pale memories of my youth, Ernesta, Kitty, Emelia, even the radiant
Acquilla, so fragrantly close to my side, Acquilla who a moment before
seemed offered up to me in some incredible dream from the Arabian
nights. And yet I did not even know if Dianne still existed or was
nothing but the empty record of a great artist of another century.
But Schiappa’s performance of ‘Tristan’ aroused my indignation. Due to
the female domination of the new society, an incredible liberty had
been taken with the part. A complete transposition of rôles had been
worked. It was Isolde now who visualized the possessive passion and
Tristan the surrender. If it had not been so monstrously grotesque I
should have burst into laughter. As it was, I was left staring and
dumfounded.
“Well, Bogardus,” said Acquilla, when the opera had ended and the
theatre emerged from its darkness, “I am anxious to know what your
criticisms will be. For of course you lived when the Wagnerian
tradition was still young.”
“I am overwhelmed,” I replied, coming out of the revery into which the
exquisite performance of Dianne had plunged me. “But first of all,
thank heavens, that you have found a genius to edit the score.”
“In what way? But that must have taken place in the last century then,”
Acquilla added, after a minute’s reflection.
“In the first place, you have cut the heavy anti-climax at the end of
the second act, where King Mark surprises the lovers and given it the
natural dramatic expression it demanded.”
“But how was it in your day?”
I described the lengthy and ponderous recital of King Mark’s
grievances, which to my modest imagination had always been an
anti-climax to the glorious mounting ecstasy of the lovers’ song.
“But even in your day, you edited and rearranged Shakespeare, why not
Wagner, who after all, was not a dramatist?”
“True, but men are traditionalists,” I replied ironically. “You see,
you women have brought a fresh point of view to the consideration of
all things.”
“True,” said Acquilla, without smiling, “Dianne will be tremendously
interested.”
“You know her?” I said with a catch of my breath.
“Of course! Would you like to meet her?”
“Now? Then she exists?” I exclaimed, my imagination racing.
“Of course she exists. Oh, I see. You thought perhaps you were
listening to a record taken fifty or a hundred years ago?”
“Nothing would surprise me, even to find that she was an automaton,” I
answered, laughing. “You know, for a moment I wasn’t sure about you.”
“We have evolved automatons that are really extraordinary,” said
Acquilla, looking at me with the mystified expression which she assumed
whenever I gave way to my hilarity. “But they remain machines. No
indeed, Dianne is very much alive. She has only just begun her career.”
I breathed a grateful sigh. At least then, the divine creature who
had captured my imagination would have her own hair and teeth! But
I checked my eagerness, for I was suddenly aware of a new flame in
Acquilla’s steel-blue eyes, and though the world was topsy-turvy
and women more so than anything else, I suspected that certain
primal characteristics had not changed. So I answered with a show of
casualness.
“Yes, there are a number of criticisms I could make, but probably they
would not interest a prima donna.”
“We’ll talk to her now.” Acquilla rose, and opening a partition in the
wall, disappeared. A moment later, she returned. “We’ll get her in a
few moments, as soon as central locates her. Of course, Bogardus, that
was a television record taken two years ago, but surely that doesn’t
astonish you?”
“The theory, of course, had been established,” I answered with some
pride, “but the complete achievement is astonishing. But then Acquilla,
are there no more theatres?”
“Why should there be any theatres?” said Acquilla. “A theatre was
simply a limited convention, where only a few hundred persons at a time
could enjoy a performance and for that, think how conventionalized
your theatre and opera had to be! It was only your great poets, like
Shakespeare and the Greeks, who intuitively wrote for the future. To
think that your actors performed on a stage with artificial trees and
skies! Surely you do not regret such performances when you can have
life itself?”
“Then every home has a theatre like this?”
“Why, of course! How could anyone live differently? The theatre _is_
the home! The theatre is the world before us; history, music and the
drama; the past and the actual. Surely, Bogardus, you recognize that
the stage as you saw it, was simply a conventionalized barrier between
the free imagination of the creative artist and his audience.”
“I agree heartily,” I said enthusiastically, “and I can hardly wait to
see more.”
“Now you are greatly excited again,” said Acquilla, “and I thought to
relax you. I think Bogardus, I shall have to send you off to sleep.”
But at this moment, a low chiming rhythm sounded in the room, and
Acquilla rising, disappeared through a partition.
“We are lucky. Dianne is in Chicago and will dine with us tomorrow
night. Come, she is eager to talk to you.”
I rose and resolved to conceal my emotion, entered a secret closet in
the wall, about twenty feet square, with some form of opaque glass
forming the sides. Acquilla closed the door behind us and touched
a switch. Instantly the figure of Dianne appeared before me, as
distinctly as though she were sitting in the room. From the intense
curiosity in her eyes, I divined that my presence was equally clear to
her.
“So you are the man from the twentieth century?” her lovely voice said
as distinctly as though she were at my side. “You cannot imagine what
excitement your arrival has caused. Tell me, what did you think of my
Isolde?”
“It was worth waiting two centuries to hear,” I began, but feeling the
compliment rather banal, I hastened to say, “Acquilla tells me you are
dining with us tomorrow night. We can discuss it then.”
“Did you find it changed? It satisfies you? Have I departed too much
from tradition?” she asked rapidly.
“Changed, yes, but wonderfully so. I am still dazzled.”
“I don’t want compliments,” she said, smiling with pleasure, more at
the intensity of feeling in my voice than at my halting words. “What
was there to criticize?”
“In your performance--nothing,” I said emphatically. “The conception of
Tristan, perhaps, was rather--rather--”
“Too masculine,” she interrupted avidly. “I knew it. I have always said
so!” she continued with a satisfaction that showed me that the feminine
in the artist had not changed so much.
“On the contrary--I found--what shall I say--I found it rather too
feminine.”
“Feminine?” she cried, opening her lovely grey-blue eyes. “But I don’t
understand, I thought it lacked rugged strength.”
“My dear Dianne,” I said, smiling, “I do not know what your new
civilization has done to my fellowmen, but I assure you in my time,
virility, robustness, vigor were qualities we associated with the male
sex.”
“Oh--” Her glance rested on mine in renewed curiosity. “I see. How
curious! That is a new point of view.”
“It is a point of view, isn’t it?”
“But rather hard to make comprehensible to a modern audience,” she said
doubtfully. “You are different, Bogardus, very different. Your voice
is different. You look at me differently, straight in the eyes. Yes,
strangely, disconcertingly different.”
“You too,” I was about to continue, in the more personal tone her look
seemed to permit, when the presence of Acquilla at my back recalled my
caution. “At any rate,” I added, carefully, “even if we quarrel, our
discussion promises to be interesting.”
“Well, if I can put off an engagement, I’ll come,” she answered in a
changed voice, which for the moment puzzled me. “Thanks all the same,
Acquilla. Your find ought to prove most instructive, I’m sure.”
We returned to the theatre.
“Do you find her beautiful?” said Acquilla, looking at me sharply.
“Oh, in a stagey sort of way,” I replied on my guard. “Is she
intelligent?”
“In a limited way, yes, but rather capricious.”
“As a matter of fact, I had to be polite, but one or two things in her
performance rather shocked me. For instance, Isolde should be played as
a blonde.”
Deceived by my manner, Acquilla replied:
“That is part of her capriciousness. She never will consent to appear
as a blonde. There are, of course, strong differences between the
blondes and the brunettes as we breed them, and to tell you a little
secret, the brunettes are extremely jealous of us.”
“Aha!” I exclaimed, suppressing a smile.
“Because, after all, they are usually of a lower caste, you know.”
I suspected that this remark would lead to new revelations in this
strictly scientific society, but already overwhelmed by the mystery of
the new knowledge to be acquired, I did not persist.
Acquilla took my hand and led me to my room, where I perceived a low
broad couch, soft and covered with silken cushions.
“What are you staring at now?”
“But where are the bed-clothes?” I asked, looking around.
“Bed-clothes? Did you put on clothes to go to bed?” said Acquilla with
a drawing of her eyebrows.
“By bed-clothes I mean sheets--”
“But there is the sheet.”
“I see. But the upper sheet--and the blanket--and the bedspread--and
the comforter?”
“What, you actually slept beneath all that! How unhygienic! No wonder
you all died young!”
“But I shall catch my death of cold!”
“Don’t you realize, my dear, that the human body like any other animal
body craves air and sunshine? Throw off your toga and try the couch.
You will find it deliciously soft. As for catching cold, that is
impossible. We adjust the temperature of the room by this thermostat.
So. Now you have the warm dry glow you require for perfect rest.”
“And you sleep without anything on,” I said hesitating, “the whole year
round?”
“Naturally. Night is the great renovator. Not only does the body
require contact with oxygen but we charge the atmosphere with
invigorating electric currents. Even the air you will breathe will be
modified according to your chemical needs. Tomorrow when you have been
thoroughly examined your chemical formula will be worked out. I am
speaking of course of the abc’s of modern scientific prolongation of
life.”
“So this at last is the fountain of youth,” I exclaimed, extending my
arms languorously to the warm incoming current. “I can feel my eyes
closing already!”
“Well--good night!” said Acquilla after a moment’s hesitation, and
taking me up into her arms she whispered, “You are unlike any man I
ever knew. What is it that draws me so to you with such strange and
bewildering force? Are you glad that it was I that found you?”
I nodded shyly, with a twentieth-century prudery, hoping desperately
that she would go and leave me alone. But as she remained staring at
me entranced, there was no help for it. I slipped from my garment and
flung myself on the couch which was indeed of a voluptuous softness
truly astounding.
“Good night, my beautiful one,” said Acquilla softly.
I counterfeited an extreme drowsiness.
“Good night, dear--I can hardly keep my eyes open--tired, so tired--so
many bewildering things--”
She slipped from the room, extinguishing the lights. My
twentieth-century inhibitions, of course! Ridiculous? Yes, even
archaic, such prudery! For after all I freely acknowledge the
superiority of this new self-unconsciousness. Besides, even in my day
were there not enfranchised spirits on the beaches of Scandinavia and
Russia, to say nothing of Germany?
Acquilla was right. After a moment I found myself perfectly accustomed
to the new hygiene. In fact nothing could have been more delightful
than this warm indolence, lying under the great panorama of the stars
that shone down on me through the transparency above, as they shone
down once on the Garden of Eden.
But for a long time I was unable to close my eyes. All the startling
discoveries of the day surged through my head in a confused torrent.
What did I know after all? Even the hints that Acquilla had dropped
added to my mystification. All had changed that I had known, but what
had replaced the old in this era of women’s ascendancy? A world where
a billion and a half human beings had been wiped out of existence! A
world where all social traditions seemed to have been discarded! And in
all this mystery what had become of man? Had we evolved into a state
of polyandry and communism? Gradually these disturbing speculations
passed away. I grew drowsy with some faint perfume that pervaded
the room. I thought of Dianne with a quickening of my imagination. I
thought of Acquilla too with an involuntary admiration, and yet with an
instinctive apprehension.
Acquilla and Dianne, both beautiful, yet so differently appealing.
Acquilla who stimulated my mind and drew me to her with a soberer
affection, Dianne who fascinated me dangerously and set my blood
to racing with the flame of her young passion. Acquilla or Dianne?
Perhaps in this new society Acquilla _and_ Dianne--and thus deliciously
perplexed I fell asleep.