"I said, it's hard to live with."
"No, no. I meant the last part."
"The constant sense of inferiority. Is something the ma--"
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the Nemarians, naturally."
"You surely don't consider them superior to us!" he said incredulously.
"Let's not fool ourselves," she said. "There isn't one of them that
isn't superior to every Terran here."
He stared at her.
"Of course, we do fool ourselves. I've been doing it a long time. Or
trying to, anyway. But I've been sitting here thinking. Among other
things, about why I didn't leave on that ship you came on, as I'd
planned."
"Why didn't you?" he asked.
"The same reason nobody else did, but Jerwyn; and he had to."
"Plenty of them don't like it here," he said. "There's plenty of
griping."
"Not really," she said. "It's not really griping. It's just a way of
making yourself feel better. Only the ones who haven't been here too
long do it, and one or two others who are real old-line die-hards, like
your Mr. Cortland.
"Why didn't you leave?"
"Because this is a good deal, of course. The climate's lovely; the
scenery's beautiful; life is sort of a perpetual pleasure outing. The
only trouble is, you're always on the fringes. You're the kid from
across the tracks."
"I don't understand."
"That wasn't the right phrase, because that implies snobbishness, and
they're not snobbish. But they don't quite accept you. They let you
hang around; they let you play with them. But you're not really one of
them."
"Why on earth should you want to be one of them! They're just a bunch
of ignorant primitives, while we come from the highest center of
culture civilization has ever attained."
"Yes, yes, I know all that. We're very good at pushing buttons and
keeping in the right traffic lanes. But let's look the facts in the
face. I've been sitting here making myself look the facts in the face.
Have you ever seen one of them act mean?"
"Well, not mean exactly, but--"
"No, you haven't. They can get plenty angry, but they don't get mean.
There's a difference."
He said nothing.
"Have you ever seen a child here tear the wings off an insect?" She
went on, not waiting for his reply. "No, you haven't. And you won't.
Have you ever seen a native with a hard, cruel face? No, again. Have
you ever seen one that wasn't gentle with children?"
"I guess not. I never thought about it."
She turned to him with an odd tremulousness in her face, replacing
her usual cynical look and slightly raised eyebrows. "They love their
children here. They really love them." She looked at him. "They don't
_say_ they love them and then hit them and humiliate them because they
accidentally break the vase Aunt Matilda gave the family for Christmas.
Their child's happiness means more to them than any vase, than any
material object. They never humiliate their children. That's why they
grow up to walk like kings and queens.
"They grow up being loved," she said. "They all love each other. And
it isn't because they try. They don't try to be good and nice and love
their fellow-men, like we do. It's just something that flows out of
them. They're full of warmth inside, and it flows out.
"And something else--" she went on. "Have you ever caught one in a lie?"
"No, but that doesn't mean--"
"People like your Mr. Cortland think they're sly and deceptive because
they're always courteous, and still you can't push them around. But
he's wrong. They're courteous because they're sorry for us, not because
they're afraid of us."
"Sorry for us?"
"Yes, sorry for us. They're sorry for us because we don't know how
to enjoy life, because we worry about all sorts of things that don't
matter, and knock ourselves out working, and need other people to
reassure us of our own worth. Because we have bad tempers and awkward
bodies, and we don't have that warmth inside of us flowing out toward
other people.
"Even toward us," she said. "They're kind to us. They're tolerant.
They want us to be happy. And they do accept us eventually. If we stay
here enough years. If we change. Maybe not quite as one of them, but
almost. Sometimes they even marry us."
Kirk shook his head, trying to clear it. "I can't think. I feel
confused, I--"
"Still thinking about our great technological achievements? We're
pretty cocky about them, aren't we? We come here all set to spread
enlightenment among the savages." She shrugged. "They're not impressed
with our magic machines. They're not selling their planet for a handful
of beads. They took a good look at us and decided to try to keep what
they had."
She looked at him steadily. "Personally, I've decided I can do without
the vidar-shows. I'm going to stay and try to make the grade here. I'm
going to work at becoming a better human being. I'm tired of being
flippant and smart and sophisticated. I'd like to be happy." She
paused. "Maybe a Nemarian will even fall in love with me eventually and
marry me."
"You want to marry one of them!"
"You catch on fast." She blinked. "Sorry. That's not a very good
beginning. It's going to take awhile to shake that flippancy." She
caught his eyes. "Wouldn't you like to marry Nanae?"
He didn't answer.
She smiled oddly. "Yes, I'd like to marry one of them and have
children like theirs." She hesitated. "I said once, they spoil their
children rotten. I guess they do in a way, but the children turn
out fine. We Terrans just aren't used to children with a sense of
their rights. These children overwhelm me." She lowered her eyes.
"You know how flippant I am--when I try it in their presence I feel
terribly stupid. They make me aware of every affectation; their eyes
are so clear--like a deer's--I feel like a fool." She looked at him
tremulously, defensively. "Anyway, I said that about their being
spoiled, out of envy. When I first saw how their mothers held them--all
that tenderness, all that love, all that warmth--I envied them with a
terrible bitterness. It wasn't that I had bad parents. Just ordinary
ones, trying to do their best and all that."
"Why do you keep talking about children all the time? After all, it's
the adults who run things."
"The children are the adults of the future. It's the way they're
brought up that makes these people what they are. You and I--all of
us from Terra--we've been brought up on a limited, scientifically
regimented, controlled amount of love. These natives have something
we'll never have. We've got to work and strive for what comes as
naturally to them as breathing."
As she spoke, Kirk suddenly remembered the close-packed faces of
Terrans speeding by in the opposite direction on the moving sidewalks
at home--tense faces, hard faces, resigned faces, sad faces, timid
faces, worried faces. Maybe one in fifty serene and self-confident,
maybe one in a hundred vibrantly, joyously alive. Maybe. Probably not
that many.
He thought of the faces of the Nemarians.
Jeannette was still talking. "They are what human beings should be,"
she said slowly. "Somehow they've kept their birthright--the ability to
be full of the joy of living whenever they're not in real trouble or
sorrow, the ability to be happy just because they're alive. I haven't
understood these people because I didn't want to understand them.
I didn't want to see that they were better than I am. They're very
simple, really; it's we who are complicated and devious."
"Why hasn't anybody ever heard of this place?" Kirk asked.
"It's isolated," she said, "and people don't leave here, once they've
seen what's here. They don't write too much, either, because by the
time the spaceship arrives again, they understand. They cooperate with
the authorities, who are trying to keep this place as much of a secret
as possible. Publicize it, and within ten years it would be swarming
with wealthy businessmen on vacation and jaded neurotics trying to get
away from it all. The Nemarians would be lost in the shuffle."
She was still a moment. "My husband came here to get away from it
all. He heard rumors of this place a long way off and traced them. I
didn't want to come. I liked cities and night-clubs; I liked being
surrounded by amiable, promiscuous men. He dragged me here against my
will. Now he's dead, and I'm caught up in his dreams. These people are
irresistible; they call out to something basic and deep in you, and
you respond to it whether you want to or not. You can't leave this
place--unless you have to. Like you will."
Kirk stood up abruptly. "Jeannette, do you mind? I feel terribly
confused. A lot has happened to me today. I want to walk alone awhile
and think things out."
She nodded, with a sudden look of compassion.
* * * * *
He walked away from her slowly, turning half unconsciously in the
direction of his house. His mind was a swirl of confusion. He tried to
think. He needed to get it all straightened out.
The sense of inferiority, she'd said, the constant sense of
inferiority. Let's not fool ourselves, she'd said. There isn't one of
them that isn't superior to every Terran here.
And he'd just sat there, stupefied, not denying it.
Because once it was spoken, put into words, it had a certain rightness.
A certain obviousness. He'd known it all the time.
He hadn't let himself know it, though. He'd struggled against it,
choking it back when it started seeping up from his unconscious. He'd
worked so hard and kept himself so busy and exhausted he didn't have
time to think. He'd thought so hard about other things he didn't have
time to think about the truth.
He'd arrived here looking for the answer to a mystery. Thinking maybe
the planet had a secret value, hoping maybe it held an explosive or new
weapon that was classified as Super Top Secret, wondering if maybe it
weren't really primitive.
And nobody could have told him: it does have a secret value--secret
because you're too blind to see it. Nobody could have told him; these
people are more advanced than you are. Because advanced meant machines.
Advanced didn't mean happy, loving, graceful, courageous, honest.
They couldn't have told him with words if he couldn't see it with his
eyes--if he couldn't see that the glowing faces of the natives held a
secret worth learning.
The only secret that really mattered.
How to be happy.
* * * * *
Nanae was there waiting when he reached the house, as though she had
been expecting him.