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, 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 we 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 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
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 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
stopped. But the flame was 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 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,
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 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, more colors 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 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 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
I am. I think. I will.
My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of
mine.... What must I say besides? These are the words. This is
the answer.
I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I
spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the
quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning.
I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for
being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant
and the sanction.
It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty
to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my
ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and
the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find
the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will
is the only edict I must respect.
Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are
false, but only three are holy: “I will it!”
Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding
star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one
direction. They point to me.
I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the
universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know
not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me
on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it.
My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is
its own goal. It is its own purpose.
Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish.
I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs.
I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on
their altars.
I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine
to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!
I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune
of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to
the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my
treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of
these is freedom.
I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I
ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no
man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.
I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of
them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must
do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without
reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I
honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.
I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters.
And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love
and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our
hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the
temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his
temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with
others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.
For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and
as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within
man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils
on earth, the root of man’s torture by men, and of an unspeakable
lie.
The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens
to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and
that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the
word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which
the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal
the wisdom of the sages.
What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it?
What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is
my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent,
are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and
to obey?
But I am done with this creed of corruption.
I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of
plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the
earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being,
this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.
This god, this one word:
“I.”
PART TWELVE
It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house
that I saw the word “I.” And when I understood this word, the
book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears.
I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.
I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I
understood why the best in me had been my sins and my
transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I
understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the
spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.
I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One,
and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked
at me and the first words she spoke were:
“I love you.”
Then I said:
“My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names.
There was a time when each man had a name of his own to
distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I
have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of
all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He
took the light of the gods and he brought it to men, and he
taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all
bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus.”
“It shall be your name,” said the Golden One.
“And I have read of a goddess,” I said, “who was the mother of
the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be
your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new
kind of gods.”
“It shall be my name,” said the Golden One.
Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the
pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his heir, as the
heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him
and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter
what name they gave to their cause and their truth.
I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the
earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets
from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the
achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them further,
the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my
brothers, for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest
ones among them.
I have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long
ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that moved
their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light which
came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the
engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it
and how to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires
which carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires
around my home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a
barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of
granite; a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. For
they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their
numbers. I have my mind.
Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and
nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is
pregnant with my child. Our son will be raised as a man. He will
be taught to say “I” and to bear the pride of it. He will be
taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught
reverence for his own spirit.
When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when
my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day,
for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call
to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and
all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason,
and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few
others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit
has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of
their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my
fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my
chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter
in the new history of man.
These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door
of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the
history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I
wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was
the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from
what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him,
save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.
That is freedom. That and nothing else.
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their
chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their
chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race.
But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a
man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take
away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right
of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he
stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the
centuries behind him had been spilled.
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his
savage beginning.
What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away
from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and
submission? The worship of the word “We.”
When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries
collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come
from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages,
from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for
its own sake. Those men who survived those eager to obey, eager
to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate
them—those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had
received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on
earth. Thus did men—men with nothing to offer save their great
number—lost the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires,
all the things they had not created and could never keep.
Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the
courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these
men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I
have been answered—and for the same reasons.
But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years
of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were
going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I
wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the
word “I” could give it up and not know what they lost. But such
has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned,
and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.
Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of
clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word.
What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw
coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and
in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they,
these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their
banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for
they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my
pity.
Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to
tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final,
and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost
can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never
perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which
men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this
earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but
it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men.
Here on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall
build our new land and our fort. And it will become as the heart
of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating
louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner of the
earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will
carry the best of the world’s blood to my threshold. And all my
brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but
they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I
shall break all the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of
the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world
where each man will be free to exist for his own sake.
For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my
chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his
life. For his honor.
And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone
the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which
will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can
never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the
meaning and the glory.
The sacred word:
EGO