During the years that followed Kuno's escapade, two important
developments took place in the Machine. On the surface they were
revolutionary, but in either case men's minds had been prepared
beforehand, and they did but express tendencies that were latent
already.
The first of these was the abolition of respirators.
Advanced thinkers, like Vashti, had always held it foolish to visit
the surface of the earth. Air-ships might be necessary, but what was
the good of going out for mere curiosity and crawling along for a
mile or two in a terrestrial motor? The habit was vulgar and perhaps
faintly improper: it was unproductive of ideas, and had no connection
with the habits that really mattered. So respirators were abolished,
and with them, of course, the terrestrial motors, and except for a
few lecturers, who complained that they were debarred access to their
subject-matter, the development was accepted quietly. Those who still
wanted to know what the earth was like had after all only to listen
to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote. And even the
lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was
none the less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that
had already been delivered on the same subject. "Beware of first-hand
ideas!" exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. "First-hand ideas
do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced
by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a
philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand,
for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element--direct
observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine--the
French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought
Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought
Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French
Revolution. Through the medium of these eight great minds, the blood
that was shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles
will be clarified to an idea which you may employ most profitably in
your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are many and
varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another.
Urizen must counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung and Enicharmon, I must
myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who listen to me are
in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am.
Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they
will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be
added to the chain. And in time"--his voice rose--"there will come a
generation that has got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation
absolutely colourless, a generation
'seraphically free
From taint of personality,'
which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they
would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it
taken place in the days of the Machine."
Tremendous applause greeted this lecture, which did but voice a feeling
already latent in the minds of men--a feeling that terrestrial facts
must be ignored, and that the abolition of respirators was a positive
gain. It was even suggested that air-ships should be abolished too.
This was not done, because air-ships had somehow worked themselves
into the Machine's system. But year by year they were used less, and
mentioned less by thoughtful men.
The second great development was the re-establishment of religion.
This, too, had been voiced in the celebrated lecture. No one could
mistake the reverent tone in which the peroration had concluded, and
it awakened a responsive echo in the heart of each. Those who had long
worshipped silently, now began to talk. They described the strange
feeling of peace that came over them when they handled the Book of the
Machine, the pleasure that it was to repeat certain numerals out of it,
however little meaning those numerals conveyed to the outward ear, the
ecstasy of touching a button, however unimportant, or of ringing an
electric bell, however superfluously.
"The Machine," they exclaimed, "feeds us and clothes us and houses us;
through it we speak to one another, through it we see one another, in
it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy
of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the
Machine." And before long this allocution was printed on the first
page of the Book, and in subsequent editions the ritual swelled into
a complicated system of praise and prayer. The word "religion" was
sedulously avoided, and in theory the Machine was still the creation
and the implement of man. But in practice all, save a few retrogrades,
worshipped it as divine. Nor was it worshipped in unity. One believer
would be chiefly impressed by the blue optic plates, through which he
saw other believers; another by the mending apparatus, which sinful
Kuno had compared to worms; another by the lifts, another by the Book.
And each would pray to this or to that, and ask it to intercede for
him with the Machine as a whole. Persecution--that also was present.
It did not break out, for reasons that will be set forward shortly.
But it was latent, and all who did not accept the minimum known as
"undenominational Mechanism" lived in danger of Homelessness, which
means death, as we know.
To attribute these two great developments to the Central Committee,
is to take a very narrow view of civilisation. The Central Committee
announced the developments, it is true, but they were no more the cause
of them than were the kings of the imperialistic period the cause of
war. Rather did they yield to some invincible pressure, which came no
one knew whither, and which, when gratified, was succeeded by some
new pressure equally invincible. To such a state of affairs it is
convenient to give the name of progress. No one confessed the Machine
was out of hand. Year by year it was served with increased efficiency
and decreased intelligence. The better a man knew his own duties upon
it, the less he understood the duties of his neighbour, and in all the
world there was not one who understood the monster as a whole. Those
master brains had perished. They had left full directions, it is true,
and their successors had each of them mastered a portion of those
directions. But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached
itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and
complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to
mean the progress of the Machine.
As for Vashti, her life went peacefully forward until the final
disaster. She made her room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room
light. She lectured and attended lectures. She exchanged ideas with her
innumerable friends and believed she was growing more spiritual. At
times a friend was granted Euthanasia, and left his or her room for
the homelessness that is beyond all human conception. Vashti did not
much mind. After an unsuccessful lecture, she would sometimes ask for
Euthanasia herself. But the death-rate was not permitted to exceed the
birth-rate, and the Machine had hitherto refused it to her.
The troubles began quietly, long before she was conscious of them.
One day she was astonished at receiving a message from her son. They
never communicated, having nothing in common, and she had only heard
indirectly that he was still alive, and had been transferred from the
northern hemisphere, where he had behaved so mischievously, to the
southern--indeed, to a room not far from her own.
"Does he want me to visit him?" she thought. "Never again, never. And I
have not the time."
No, it was madness of another kind.
He refused to visualize his face upon the blue plate, and speaking out
of the darkness with solemnity said:
"The Machine stops."
"What do you say?"
"The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs."
She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was angry, and they
spoke no more.
"Can you imagine anything more absurd?" she cried to a friend. "A man
who was my son believes that the Machine is stopping. It would be
impious if it was not mad."
"The Machine is stopping?" her friend replied. "What does that mean?
The phrase conveys nothing to me."
"Nor to me."
"He does not refer, I suppose, to the trouble there has been lately
with the music?"
"Oh no, of course not. Let us talk about music."
"Have you complained to the authorities?"
"Yes, and they say it wants mending, and referred me to the Committee
of the Mending Apparatus. I complained of those curious gasping sighs
that disfigure the symphonies of the Brisbane school. They sound like
some one in pain. The Committee of the Mending Apparatus say that it
shall be remedied shortly."
Obscurely worried, she resumed her life. For one thing, the defect in
the music irritated her. For another thing, she could not forget Kuno's
speech. If he had known that the music was out of repair--he could not
know it, for he detested music--if he had known that it was wrong,
"the Machine stops" was exactly the venomous sort of remark he would
have made. Of course he had made it at a venture, but the coincidence
annoyed her, and she spoke with some petulance to the Committee of the
Mending Apparatus.
They replied, as before, that the defect would be set right shortly.
"Shortly! At once!" she retorted. "Why should I be worried by imperfect
music? Things are always put right at once. If you do not mend it at
once, I shall complain to the Central Committee."
"No personal complaints are received by the Central Committee," the
Committee of the Mending Apparatus replied.
"Through whom am I to make my complaint, then?"
"Through us."
"I complain then."
"Your complaint shall be forwarded in its turn."
"Have others complained?"
This question was unmechanical, and the Committee of the Mending
Apparatus refused to answer it.
"It is too bad!" she exclaimed to another of her friends. "There never
was such an unfortunate woman as myself. I can never be sure of my
music now. It gets worse and worse each time I summon it."
"I too have my troubles," the friend replied. "Sometimes my ideas are
interrupted by a slight jarring noise."
"What is it?"
"I do not know whether it is inside my head, or inside the wall."
"Complain, in either case."
"I have complained, and my complaint will be forwarded in its turn to
the Central Committee."
Time passed, and they resented the defects no longer. The defects
had not been remedied, but the human tissues in that latter day had
become so subservient, that they readily adapted themselves to every
caprice of the Machine. The sigh at the crisis of the Brisbane symphony
no longer irritated Vashti; she accepted it as part of the melody.
The jarring noise, whether in the head or in the wall, was no longer
resented by her friend. And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so
with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes
that the poetry machine had taken to emit. All were bitterly complained
of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten. Things went from
bad to worse unchallenged.
It was otherwise with the failure of the sleeping apparatus. That
was a more serious stoppage. There came a day when over the whole
world--in Sumatra, in Wessex, in the innumerable cities of Courland
and Brazil--the beds, when summoned by their tired owners, failed
to appear. It may seem a ludicrous matter, but from it we may date
the collapse of humanity. The Committee responsible for the failure
was assailed by complainants, whom it referred, as usual, to the
Committee of the Mending Apparatus, who in its turn assured them that
their complaints would be forwarded to the Central Committee. But the
discontent grew, for mankind was not yet sufficiently adaptable to do
without sleeping.
"Some one is meddling with the Machine----" they began.
"Some one is trying to make himself king, to reintroduce the personal
element."
"Punish that man with Homelessness."
"To the rescue! Avenge the Machine! Avenge the Machine!"
"War! Kill the man!"
But the Committee of the Mending Apparatus now came forward, and
allayed the panic with well-chosen words. It confessed that the Mending
Apparatus was itself in need of repair.
The effect of this frank confession was admirable.
"Of course," said a famous lecturer--he of the French Revolution, who
gilded each new decay with splendour--"of course we shall not press our
complaints now. The Mending Apparatus has treated us so well in the
past that we all sympathize with it, and will wait patiently for its
recovery. In its own good time it will resume its duties. Meanwhile let
us do without our beds, our tabloids, our other little wants. Such, I
feel sure, would be the wish of the Machine."
Thousands of miles away his audience applauded. The Machine still
linked them. Under the seas, beneath the roots of the mountains, ran
the wires through which they saw and heard, the enormous eyes and ears
that were their heritage, and the hum of many workings clothed their
thoughts in one garment of subserviency. Only the old and the sick
remained ungrateful, for it was rumoured that Euthanasia, too, was out
of order, and that pain had reappeared among men.
It became difficult to read. A blight entered the atmosphere and dulled
its luminosity. At times Vashti could scarcely see across her room. The
air, too, was foul. Loud were the complaints, impotent the remedies,
heroic the tone of the lecturer as he cried: "Courage, courage! What
matter so long as the Machine goes on? To it the darkness and the
light are one." And though things improved again after a time, the old
brilliancy was never recaptured, and humanity never recovered from its
entrance into twilight. There was an hysterical talk of "measures,"
of "provisional dictatorship," and the inhabitants of Sumatra were
asked to familiarize themselves with the workings of the central
power station, the said power station being situated in France. But
for the most part panic reigned, and men spent their strength praying
to their Books, tangible proofs of the Machine's omnipotence. There
were gradations of terror--at times came rumours of hope--the Mending
Apparatus was almost mended--the enemies of the Machine had been got
under--new "nerve-centres" were evolving which would do the work even
more magnificently than before. But there came a day when, without the
slightest warning, without any previous hint of feebleness, the entire
communication-system broke down, all over the world, and the world, as
they understood it, ended.
Vashti was lecturing at the time and her earlier remarks had been
punctuated with applause. As she proceeded the audience became silent,
and at the conclusion there was no sound. Somewhat displeased, she
called to a friend who was a specialist in sympathy. No sound:
doubtless the friend was sleeping. And so with the next friend whom
she tried to summon, and so with the next, until she remembered Kuno's
cryptic remark, "The Machine stops."
The phrase still conveyed nothing. If Eternity was stopping it would of
course be set going shortly.
For example, there was still a little light and air--the atmosphere had
improved a few hours previously. There was still the Book, and while
there was the Book there was security.
Then she broke down, for with the cessation of activity came an
unexpected terror--silence.
She had never known silence, and the coming of it nearly killed
her--it did kill many thousands of people outright. Ever since her
birth she had been surrounded by the steady hum. It was to the ear
what artificial air was to the lungs, and agonizing pains shot across
her head. And scarcely knowing what she did, she stumbled forward and
pressed the unfamiliar button, the one that opened the door of her cell.
Now the door of the cell worked on a simple hinge of its own. It was
not connected with the central power station, dying far away in France.
It opened, rousing immoderate hopes in Vashti, for she thought that the
Machine had been mended. It opened, and she saw the dim tunnel that
curved far away towards freedom. One look, and then she shrank back.
For the tunnel was full of people--she was almost the last in that city
to have taken alarm.
People at any time repelled her, and these were nightmares from her
worst dreams. People were crawling about, people were screaming,
whimpering, gasping for breath, touching each other, vanishing in the
dark, and ever and anon being pushed off the platform on to the live
rail. Some were fighting round the electric bells, trying to summon
trains which could not be summoned. Others were yelling for Euthanasia
or for respirators, or blaspheming the Machine. Others stood at the
doors of their cells fearing, like herself, either to stop in them or
to leave them. And behind all the uproar was silence--the silence which
is the voice of the earth and of the generations who have gone.
No--it was worse than solitude. She closed the door again and sat
down to wait for the end. The disintegration went on, accompanied by
horrible cracks and rumbling. The valves that restrained the Medical
Apparatus must have been weakened, for it ruptured and hung hideously
from the ceiling. The floor heaved and fell and flung her from her
chair. A tube oozed towards her serpent fashion. And at last the final
horror approached--light began to ebb, and she knew that civilisation's
long day was closing.
She whirled round, praying to be saved from this, at any rate, kissing
the Book, pressing button after button. The uproar outside was
increasing, and even penetrated the wall. Slowly the brilliancy of her
cell was dimmed, the reflections faded from her metal switches. Now
she could not see the reading-stand, now not the Book, though she held
it in her hand. Light followed the flight of sound, air was following
light, and the original void returned to the cavern from which it had
been so long excluded. Vashti continued to whirl, like the devotees of
an earlier religion, screaming, praying, striking at the buttons with
bleeding hands.
It was thus that she opened her prison and escaped--escaped in the
spirit: at least so it seems to me, ere my meditation closes. That she
escapes in the body--I cannot perceive that. She struck, by chance, the
switch that released the door, and the rush of foul air on her skin,
the loud throbbing whispers in her ears, told her that she was facing
the tunnel again, and that tremendous platform on which she had seen
men fighting. They were not fighting now. Only the whispers remained,
and the little whimpering groans. They were dying by hundreds out in
the dark.
She burst into tears.
Tears answered her.
They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves. They could not
bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their
hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important on the earth.
Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible,
man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength
on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the
garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and
here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first,
shot with the colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial.
And heavenly it had been so long as it was a garment and no more, so
long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is
his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin
against the body--it was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of
wrong against the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by
which we can alone apprehend--glozing it over with talk of evolution,
until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last
sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.
"Where are you?" she sobbed.