Читать книгу Afternoons in Utopia: Tales of the New Time - Стивен Ликок - Страница 4

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Suppose that there were written down the chronicle of one day’s doings of any ordinary family of today, how strange it would appear—could they have foreseen and read it—to the people of three or four hundred years ago! Not their day to us, but ours to them; not one of their days as seen by us in retrospect, but one of our days as seen by them, if it were possible, in prospect. The little acts and incidents and surroundings which we take for granted as part of our daily life, how marvellous, how inexplicable to them!

Their day to us would not seem strange or mysterious, but only limited, cramped and objectionable. People in dirty houses with garbage floating down the street outside; people without motor-cars and newspapers and telephones; ignorant people in an ignorant world, full of silly beliefs and superstitions, and cruel in their silliness; people to whom moving pictures would have been the work of the devil, Charlie Chaplin a ghost, and an aeroplane an angel—the lives of such people would have no charm or wonder for us. Even the vast mystery of the unknown and unlimited world in which they lived is spoiled by their stupid certainty about the little stars set up in the sky to light them.

But our day to them, could they but see it! For them we live in a world of humming wires and rushing winds, of ghosts walking in white light on paper walls, the voices of the spirits calling from the unknown at our command. Magic wands control the forces of the earth and air in a new world in which they would find everything changed, nothing left that was—nothing but man himself.

Nothing but man. Yet man himself goes next. The biggest change of all is yet to come—as will amply appear in the pages of this book.

Now ever since people learned to write and set down their imaginings in books, many wise and interesting writers have given to the people of their day pictures of what they thought the world was going to be like later on. Plato began it. The fathers of the Church, the monks and the Arabs went on with it. In Henry the Eighth’s time Sir Thomas More before (not after) he was beheaded wrote his Utopia. After him came Bacon and Milton and Bunyan, and Lord Lytton and Mr. Bellamy, and others writing still.

So many of these Utopias have been written that they have all run to a pattern that grows drowsy in its very sameness. In all of them the narrator falls asleep for two hundred years and awakes (which is a pity) to find himself in an altered world. He is confronted with a “venerable being” who is cut to a pattern in a “flowing robe,” with the further credential of a “majestic beard.” This being, then, who speaks beautiful but antiquated English—

But stop—let us reproduce the familiar scene of the long sleep and the arrival of the awakened sleeper in dear old Utopia. We will introduce, however, the slight, but novel, innovation of supposing that the narrator in this case arrives with—and not as usually depicted—without—his—brains.

My Voyage to Utopia

Having decided to make one of those voyages to Utopia which have been the source of great literary profit from the days of Sir Thomas More until now, I realized that I must find means to fall asleep for a hundred years.

I did so.

On awakening I found myself as it were awake, and looked about me in order to ascertain, if possible, where I was. I found myself reclining on a couch in what appeared to me to be a large Gothic chamber—I might almost call it a hall—I will call it a hall—of which the lofty ceiling extended into a half darkness while the hall itself was lighted by a soft and suffused light coming from I knew not where. But as I had not expected to know where the light came from, this did not in any way upset me.

I was well aware that in all Utopias the light is soft and suffused and comes from you don’t know where. As a matter of fact I had seen, even in the poor old vanished world from which I came, little tricks like this light stuff, or nearly as good.

I had therefore no means of telling whether it was day or night—another fact which gave me no concern, as I was indifferent as to whether it was day or night. I looked at my watch. It had stopped. I had an idea that it must have stopped because it had run down. This fact I presently verified by winding it up.

Rising to a half-recumbent posture—which is as far as I care to go in one rise—I looked about me. The chamber as I said was vast yet contained little furniture other than a few oaken tables and chairs of an exquisite workmanship and design which I never recalled to have seen before. This, however, was not surprising as I have never worked in a furniture store. A few rugs of elaborate craftsmanship lay on the floor; but whether of skins or of woven fabric I was unable to say. I always am.

Being well acquainted with Utopias I knew that I had only to wait patiently and they would start something. I was certain that they wouldn’t be long, nor indeed had I long to wait. A door at the side of the room opened and a “slippered attendant” appeared. I knew, of course, that the first thing to come would be a slippered attendant. If he hadn’t I’d have slippered him myself.

I saw at once that he was an attendant from the fact that he wore one of those “loose smocks” which by common consent are recognized as the costume of all attendants, two hundred years hence. It was a sort of two-piece pajama suit made of some plain woven material, but of what I could not say which.

The slippered attendant approached the couch where I was now only one-quarter recumbent and made a low obeisance.

“Come,” he said, “Oom will see you.” “All right,” I said and I readjusted my collar and necktie and followed him.

We crossed to the further end of the great hall and my attendant knocked at a small oaken door. To my surprise, the door opened of itself without the aid of human hands. Often though I have seen this—doors in restaurants and other places that open this way—I am always surprised at it. I don’t see how it is arranged unless there is some kind of catch or spring or trick about it. Anyway, it opened.

As yet, however, I could not see into the room beyond, which was half darkened.

The attendant bowed low in the doorway.

“One is without,” he said.

He didn’t say what I was without (perhaps, without a drink) but I guessed from my previous reading that he merely meant “outside.”

A deep resonant voice answered back, “Let the stranger enter.”

I found myself, on entering, in the presence of a venerable being whose flowing robe and majestic beard lent to him an air of dignity almost amounting to senility.

“Stranger,” he said. “Thou art awake, welcome.”

Just why he should adopt a form of speech lost for four centuries except in Yorkshire, I was at a loss to know. But I remembered that that is the way they always speak in the Utopia books.

“What wouldst?” continued Oom.

“First,” I said, “if you don’t mind I would like something to eat and drink.”

“Your pardon,” said Oom, “I had forgotten. With us it matters so little.”

He clapped his hands.

Two slippered attendants at once appeared as if by magic—in fact by magic.

“Bring viands and drink,” commanded Oom.

“Don’t you yourself eat, Dr. Oom?” I asked.

“I am indifferent to it,” replied the venerable man. “Our constitutions and the life we lead—so different from yours of the Earth-as-it-was—render food scarcely necessary. I break my fast in the morning with perhaps an egg, or bacon or eggs, or perhaps a beefsteak, or lamb kidneys and bacon with waffles—but it is a matter of indifference. At noon I take nothing, unless perhaps a cold meat pie or a lobster. Beyond this I eat nothing till at eventide and then possibly a hot goose or a boiled jack-rabbit with a veal cutlet—it is of no consequence. The abstemious life brings its own reward; the mind, O Stranger, becomes clearer, more liquid—”

“I know,” I said, “less full of mud. Indeed this abstemious life had got well started in what you call the Earth-as-it-was. I have often heard people speak as you do.”

“Here’s the food,” said Oom.

The attendants then set before us a tray of dainty and refreshing viands—including what appeared to be pâté de foie gras, only better, and canapé aux anchois, only not so smashed up.

For drink the attendant poured a liquor of exquisite appearance into tall glasses of incredible thinness and delicacy. The soft light of the room seemed reflected into iridescent opal colours both from the liquid and the glass.

“What is it?” I asked of Dr. Oom as I held the marvellous beverage up to the light.

“Your tongue,” he said, “hath no speech for it. With us it is called Slooch.”

“Is it intoxicating?” I asked.

“Not in the least,” replied Dr. Oom. “Indeed,” he continued, “I can see from your questions how far our world has travelled from the Earth-as-it-was. Were it not for my knowledge of history, I should be at a loss to answer your question. But sit, stranger, eat and drink and I, too, will partake with you of a friendly bite as it approaches even now the equidistant point between my last meal and my next.”

As we ate, Dr. Oom proceeded to explain to me how the questions of what we used to call prohibition had long since been entirely solved. All that was needed, he said, was to discover a beverage which, like Slooch, was stimulating and exhilarating but not intoxicating. Slooch, he explained, could easily bring one to laughter or tears, or might even provoke a desire to sing, or set up a noble anger, or at times induce a profound sleep—but it was not intoxicating. He explained the matter further but I was unable to follow entirely the explanations which he gave. It seemed to turn on the idea that what is “intoxicating” is a matter of legal definition, so that by arduous improvement of the law all danger of intoxication was cut out.

When we had at last finished Dr. Oom said, “Well, I suppose we had better begin. You wish to ask me, I am sure, all kinds of questions about the new world in which you find yourself.”

I took out my pencil and notebook and nodded.

“What shall I start with,” said Dr. Oom, “or rather how likes it you that I lay on? How about currency and coinage, would you like me to begin with that?”

“No,” I said, “never mind currency and coinage. I never had much grip on that.”

“The Gold Standard,” began Dr. Oom.

“I know,” I said. “It was already doomed. Try something else.”

“Would you like,” said Dr. Oom, “to ask me about wages and labour and what is now the relation of the capitalistic classes, as you used to call them, to the workers? Let me talk about that, eh?”

“No, please don’t,” I replied. “I had got so fed up with that before I fell asleep that I really don’t care about it one way or the other.”

“The problem,” said Dr. Oom reflectingly, stroking his majestic beard as he spoke, and disregarding my interruption, “proved in the end amazingly simple. But the manner and method in which it was solved involves a rather detailed intricate narration, partly in Old English, of what has happened in the industrial world in two hundred years. However, I will try—”

“No,” I said, “please don’t, Dr. Oom—I presume you are Doctor. Please don’t. Let’s get on to something with a little more go to it.”

Oom began again.

“Among the many things which will surprise you most in the world you are about to visit is the prolongation of human life. In the days when you lived I believe that the average duration of human life was about fifty-eight years decimal four. It is now—but you will see for yourself when you meet our old men. I am sure you will be delighted and surprised to see what a snappy lot of bright old men we have among us.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “But I can get all that in figures later on, can’t I? Give me something that sounds a little more like a news item or a feature story.”

“How about peace and war?” said Dr. Oom.

“I think I can guess all that,” I answered. “The nations came together and agreed to abolish war.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Oom, “by a vote of thirty-one to thirty. It was a close thing but it got through.”

A silence fell upon us during which Dr. Oom refilled his glass from the flagon and drank its contents with a reflecting air.

“I made a mistake,” he said.

“Why, of course!” said I.

The same idea had evidently struck us both at the same moment. “Of course,” I repeated, “you should have first shown me this new world and what it looks like. This chamber, as a matter of fact, has a passageway leading out upon the ‘leads’ and balconies of the vast building in which it is constructed—”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, it always does,” I said. “Come, lead me out upon the roof and let me see the changed world that lies about me.”

Oom rose and without a word led me through a side door and along a short passage, and then out upon a flat balustraded roof from which, in an instant vision, appeared a vast panorama illumined with brilliant sunshine and reaching to the horizon.

Great Heavens! Was this the city I had known! Whither had gone the tall skyscrapers reaching to the clouds? Where was the long reach of the wide Hudson, the vast suspension bridge hung like an aerial web from shore to shore? Where was it all gone? or how had it changed to this? I turned to Dr. Oom, who stood beside me, quietly smiling at my evident and utter astonishment.

“Can this,” I said, pointing to the vision around me, “can this be New York?”

“New York?” said Oom. “No, of course not. This is London.”

The exhilaration which had kindled in his face died out of it. In fact he looked rather crestfallen. “Yes,” he said, “this is London. What made you think it New York?”

“Why, I fell asleep in New York,” I said.

“I believe that’s right,” said Dr. Oom, reflecting. “You did, very likely. There was a sort of patriotic exchange of hundred year sleepers between England and America and you must have come over in that lot. In fact, now I think of it, you did.

“But sit down, sit down,” he said, recovering his animation and indicating a stone bench overlooking the balustrade. “Sit down and let me tell you of this vast city, every detail of which will surprise you. You notice that it is all covered in with glass, do you not?—I mean, dost not thou? That must give you, a being of a previous world, quite a jolt, doesn’t it?”

“Well, in a sense,” I said, pausing to light a cigarette which I had found with a lighter in my pocket, “and yet in a sense it doesn’t. We had started that.”

“You will be surprised at least to learn,” said Dr. Oom, “that in all this vast city there is not a single moving vehicle—”

“I hardly expected there would be,” I replied; “no doubt the sidewalks themselves ...”

“Exactly,” said Dr. Oom.

A silence ensued which began, in a way, to be almost painful or at least boring. I realized that the scene between us had been worn so thin in preceding generations that it was difficult to keep it up at the proper point of intensity.

I began to feel it my duty to discover some subject at least upon which the revelations of Dr. Oom would come up to the standard of feature-article interest.

“Dr. Oom,” I said, “there is one thing that always and forever, in each successive world and generation, is of undying interest. What about the position and status of women in this new world?”

“Ah!” said Dr. Oom, “most interesting; let me explain first ...”

But he had hardly spoken when the little door through which we had stepped out onto the roof was swung open and a glad, girlish voice called: “Why, father, where ever have you been?”

A ravishing girlish figure rushed across to the leads and threw its arms in affectionate impulsiveness about the neck of Dr. Oom....

How ever can I forget the moment—my first sight of Rooshna—my first glimpse of she for whom or rather but for whom all that I was, or rather whatever else I am—but enough. Words fail me to convey the picture of the exquisite being who thus burst upon my sight.

She was clad in a long and quietly flowing garment which appeared made of a single fabric, that is, I couldn’t see a hole or a join in it, in which, or rather from which and through which the colours of the sunshine seemed to glisten in opalescent irradiation.

“Rooshna,” said Dr. Oom in a voice of gentle remonstrance at the impulsiveness of the exquisite being who clung to his neck. “Look, my child. One is with us.”

Rooshna unclasped her arms as she became aware of my presence. Then moving towards me, her hands clasped in agitation, she raised her eyes to mine.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “at last you are awake! How wonderful! Sometimes I used to think that you would never wake; some years you seemed almost to do so and other years you seemed to sleep harder than ever.”

Marvellous it seemed to me to think that this exquisite being—if I may call her that again—had watched over my slumbers.

Dr. Oom turned towards us.

“My daughter, Rooshna,” he said with a smile, “has long been your constant attendant while you slept. She was always hoping that the day might come when she herself might show you all the wonders of this strange new world.”

“But I should like nothing better,” I said. “I shall be charmed indeed if Miss Oom will be so kind as to act as my guide.”

“Excellent,” said Dr. Oom; “for myself I pray that you will excuse me as I have to attend this afternoon a meeting of the Witanagemot.”

“Come along then,” said Rooshna gaily; “let me lead the way.”

“You must tell me,” she said as we made our way through the passages and halls of the beautiful building from which we had emerged, “what you want to know about first. There must be so much to explain to you; how would you like to hear first about our currency and coinage?”

“Currency and coinage!” I repeated with delight. “I can imagine nothing more fascinating. Do tell me about it.”

“I will,” said Rooshna, “and then, after that, what about a little talk on transportation facilities.”

“Glorious!” I said.

“And then I know you want to hear about labour and capital and social insurance.”

“Delicious! I can’t hear enough of it.”

“Then I shall have lots to tell you. Of course father could have explained it all much better.”

“Miss Oom,” I said boldly, “I don’t regret your father’s absence.”

Rooshna looked at me with an air of perplexity.

“Why do you say that?” she questioned. “I can’t understand why you say that. Really I can’t. But anyway”—her expression cleared as she spoke—“father couldn’t come as he had to be at the Witanagemot—if you know what that is?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, “the meeting of the Wise Old Men. And pray, tell me, what does your father do, Miss Oom?” I asked.

“Do?” she said. “How do you mean?”

“I mean what is his work.”

“Oh! I understand,” said Rooshna, breaking into a pleasant laugh, “work! You see there’s practically no work at all now. It’s all done by the machines and especially by the new life-force which science has invented and which is called Wheee! You’ve heard of that?”

“Not exactly,” I answered, “but of course in all the Utopia books there was generally a marvellous force of that sort.”

“Quite so,” said Rooshna. “So you see since the discovery of Wheee, there is really terribly little to do. Employment has grown extremely rare and is confined to the young. So that the men like father have to find other things to occupy them.”

“And how does he occupy himself?”

“He works on the sky a good deal, astronomical work, you know, like taking the mean altitude of the sun and finding the diameter of the moon. He does both of those every day, and then he generally copies out the multiplication table every morning.”

“But hasn’t all that been done before?”

“Of course,” answered Rooshna with just a shade of irritation in her tone, “but what else can father do? Since the invention of Wheee there’s no work and of course there are no professions because we don’t have soldiers any more, and there is no law, and since the invention of Healall there is no illness and no doctors. You know about Healall?”

“I think so,” I said; “already it was foreseen in some of our newspaper advertisements. It cures everything.”

“Exactly. So what can father do? But come along—don’t let’s sit here. Let’s go out in the street. There!” she said, “is the outer door swung open. How do you like the look of it?”

“Marvellous,” I said. “Why, the street is all roofed over with glass! How wonderful! And the sidewalk actually moves along like a moving platform! Who could have believed it?”

“Jump onto it then,” cried Rooshna, “and away we go!”

Marvellous indeed was the afternoon which ensued during which Rooshna conducted me, on the moving platform and on foot, among the pleasant squares and gardens where we rested and talked of the wonderful world about us. At little tables set under sycamore trees, slippered attendants served us with Slooch in golden glasses and with synthetic fruits and canned sardines. Rooshna meanwhile explained to me the currency, the coinage, the labour legislation and the rules of procedure of the Witanagemot. I was delighted with all I saw, and especially pleased to remark the excessive number of old men moving about, and how bright the old fellows seemed!

The prolongation of life, as my fair conductress explained, had naturally led to the existence of a high percentage of bright, snappy old people. The young were few, and, I presume, for the most part busy elsewhere, at school or work. But their absence was more than compensated by the great number of old men, every one of whom seemed in full possession of all the faculties he had ever had or needed.

Never have I had such a delightful afternoon. So much so that I returned from it with the most glorious feeling of satisfaction, a feeling as if I had, so to speak, plenty of it.

That evening I banqueted with Dr. Oom and his friends in the great hall. The meal was served to us, not seated in our stiff fashion of today, but in the true Utopian pose of reclining languidly on couches, while slippered attendants served us with exquisite viands as we reclined. Our discourse was accompanied by soft music proceeding from I know not where. During the meal, which was a prolonged one, Dr. Oom and his friends conversed enthusiastically of the altitude of the sun, of the binomial theorem, and of the multiplication table. Their talk, I perceived, was animated but never contentious. Just once for a moment something like controversy arose as to what was nine times eight but it was only for a moment. For the most part, I realized, there was nothing to argue over, everything being long since settled; and in a world where nothing happened, there were of course no events or happenings to talk about. As a consequence conversation was able to move on the higher ground of eternal verities such as multiplication and long division.

I need not describe in detail the marvellous days which succeeded my first awakening in Utopia. Each day brought its delightful round. Rooshna would join me after breakfast and would talk of currency, bimetalism and the elimination of the unearned increment. Then I would spend half an hour beside the venerable Dr. Oom, holding his astronomical instruments for him, while he measured the apparent diameter of the moon, and listening to his pleasant talk on the zodiac and the equinoxes. After, would come a ride on the moving platforms with Rooshna, while we discussed the relation of profits to interest, or the relation of interest to profits, or the possibility of a regulated currency based on the reciprocal variation of the index of general prices. The evening brought with it the customary prolonged and delightful banquet on synthetic eggs, fried figs and goulash under glass. The food, I discovered, had all been prepared years and years before....

How long this delicious existence might have lasted I cannot say. I was aware, however, that my feelings towards Rooshna were rapidly passing from the mere sense of interest and companionship to something more intense, deeper, and, if I may so call it, broader and indeed higher. In fact I was already conscious in my own heart that I loved her. Again and again as I sat under the spell of her talk on sociological science I could scarcely resist the impulse to take her to my heart and tell her of my love.

But at the same time another and entirely different impulse kept drawing me in an opposite direction. More and more each day I began to feel an overwhelming desire to go to sleep. My sleep at night was not enough. I wanted more. As I sat with Dr. Oom watching his grave face as he tested out the multiplication table with marks on a bit of paper, I wanted to sleep. If I sat out in one of the little squares where the fountains splashed beneath the sycamores, my head would sink forward with a drowsy desire for sleep. Even at the banquets in the evening something in the soft unvarying light, the gentle music and the murmur of the scientific discourse on the properties of a right-angled triangle—even this failed to keep me roused. Sleep—I must sleep.

Yet behind this feeling there seemed to me some strange, deep, subtle meaning which I couldn’t fathom. Why this unending ever-present desire for sleep? Had it some bearing on the mystery of life itself? Could it mean that beyond all the arts and contrivances of man—this prolongation of life and removal of accident, danger and disease—there was something, some undeniable decree. What was this world into which I had penetrated by some occult process unknown to myself? Could it be?—I put the thought from me—could it be, could that be—the meaning of unending quiet, this unending harmony, this living among the unchanging truths of existence—this life without life—I wouldn’t name the word—was that where I was?

It was on the tenth day.

Overwhelmingly the thought came to me. I sprang up from the bench on which I sat.

I stood erect and grasped Rooshna’s hand as she sat. “Rooshna,” I said, “I love you!”

“I know that,” she said quietly, not speaking like a Utopian but like a woman of the Earth-as-it-was. “I know that,” she said. “I knew it from the first.”

“Rooshna,” I said, “I love you. But I must go ... out, out of this ... I don’t know how, or where, but out and back into life again....”

“I know,” she said, “I’m going too.”

“But you can’t,” I said, “your place is here. Your father ...”

Rooshna shook her head.

“He is not my father. I call him that, but I too belong as you do outside. I don’t know—I can’t remember now—it is all so perplexed. It seems as if I had been here ever so long—waiting for you.”

I seated myself again beside Rooshna.

We sat silent for a little time, our hands clasped.

Then she spoke.

“Listen,” she said, “will you trust me?”

“Oh, of course,” I answered.

“But I mean trust me a great deal. Do you remember that in the life you came from long ago there were stories called fairy stories—and often in these fairy stories, there was a princess, and the princess would say to her lover, ‘Will you trust me and do what I say, and no matter how hard it is you will do it and everything will be all right?’ ”

“Well?” I said.

“Well, I want you to do that now. You want to sleep—to sleep as if to sleep forever. There, lie upon the bench—your head upon my arm—so; and now say to me good-bye. I understand, dear. You cannot stay. Sleep.”

“You’ve been asleep so long. I didn’t like to wake you.”

It was my wife’s voice. She was standing beside the bed, with a cup of tea in her hand—my wife’s voice, but where had I heard it before?

“I didn’t want to wake you,” she repeated, “but I do so want to show you this. I found it in turning out some old things this morning. Do you remember it?”

As she spoke she handed me, half blushing, a little picture of the queer old kind once called a “tintype.”

“Why, of course!” I said, still half dreaming, “it’s you and me.”

“When the tintype man took us on the little seat under the sycamore.”

“The day I said, when I—”

“Yes,” she answered, “that day.”