There is some word, one single word which is not in the language
of men, but which [-had-] {+has+} 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-] {+him+} 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, [-their-] {+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
{+it+} 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. . . .-] {+word....+}
What--even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the [-Pyre--what-] {+pyre
--what+} is the Unspeakable Word?
[-PART THREE-]
{+Chapter 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 {+all+} 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 [-is-] {+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-] {+say+} 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-] {+a+} 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-] {+lightening+}
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 [-that-] {+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 [-that-] {+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-]
{+Chapter 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-] {+what+} 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-] {+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 [-at-] {+as+} if they would obey any word we might speak.
And we said:
"We have [-give-] {+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 [-look-] {+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-] {+those+} 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,"-]
{+"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,-] {+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,-] {+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-]
{+Chapter 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-] {+had+} made. We shall be forgiven for anything we
say [-tonight.-] {+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 [-come-] {+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-] {+the+} 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 . . .-] {+is...+}
Yes, we do care. For the first time [-do-] we {+do+} 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 {+are+} proud of this thread of metal,
or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these [-two?-]
{+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-]
{+Chapter 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,-] {+remembered,+} 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-] {+judges+} were small, thin men, grey and bent.
They gave the signal to the two strong hooded ones.
They tore [-the-] {+our+} 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.-] {+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-] {+flying+} 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, [-or-] {+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-]
{+Chapter 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 {+the+} 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-] {+a+} great sky.
There were {+the+} 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-] {+Equity+} 7-2521," we answered, "and we are a Street
Sweeper of this City."
Then [-is-] {+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-] {+has+} 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-] {+on+} 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-] {+voice+} brought silence to the hall and to [-be-] {+the+}
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 [-that-] {+than+} the minds
of your brothers? And if the [-Councils-] {+Council+} 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 {+you think+} 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.
[-"Man-]
{+"Yes," we answered.
"What is not done collectively cannot be good," said
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 [-6-4349.-] {+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 [-andle-] {+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-] {+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 [-to-] {+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"-] {+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 {+a+} 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 [-this-] {+thus+} for a long time. Then we rose, we took our [-box and-] {+box, had+}
walked on into the forest.
It mattered not where we went. We knew that men would not follow
us, for they never [-enter-] {+entered+} 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-] {+one+} forget our name and the
body which bore that name.
[-PART EIGHT-]
{+Chapter 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 {+to our feet+} 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-] {+things+} without sense, but before we knew [-it-]
{+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-] {+fell+} 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 [-is-] {+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-] {+no+} pity when [-looking-] {+we looked+} 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-] {+from+} 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-]
{+Chapter 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 {+you+} to be here, Golden One?"
{+But they whispered only:+}
"We have found you. . . ."
"How [-did you-] come {+you+} 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.-] {+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 [-pleased-] {+be
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-] {+a woman+} 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-] {+smolder+} 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.-] {+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-] {+Thus+} we {+have+} 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 {+then+} 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-]
{+Chapter 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-] {+have+} 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
{+we+} stopped. But the flame [-was-] {+as+} 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 {+kept+}
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,-] {+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-] {+man+} 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, {+and+} more colors [-that-] {+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-] {+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-] {+this+} 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-]
{+Chapter Eleven+}